


Monachopsis

by cambriarose



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Adventure, After Nightshade, Alex hates MI6, Angst, Book 12: Nightshade (Alex Rider), Dark, Death, Dr Three has a daughter?, F/M, Familyissues, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Masochism, Mentions of Rape, Morbid, Multi, Murder, Murder Children, Nightshade, No Romance, Questionable Friendships, Reader be warned, Revenge, SCORPIA people have kids, Sadism, Scorpia - Freeform, Sex, Someangst, Terrorist children, Violence, Whump, Yassen has a daughter?, alexrider, alittlemorbid, badchoices, daddyissues, darkcomedy, darkerthemes, darkhumor - Freeform, familialissues, frederickgray, issuesingeneral, jacklives, mentalillness, mentions of date rape, mentionsofdaterape, mentionsofrape, murder buddies, nightshadehappened, no romance yet, reluctant allies, revengemurder, sabinapleasure, somecomfort, somefluff, spoilersifyouhaven'treadyet, triggeringtopics, weird relationships, yassenhasakid?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25459036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cambriarose/pseuds/cambriarose
Summary: When Alex announces his decision to work for MI6 only part-time, he doesn't actually expect them to hold up to their promise. Doesn't expect them to play fair. Doesn't expect them to not cheat at the very game they'd both set stakes in. They own most of him, though he can try to deny it all he wants. There's not left, except, perhaps, his morals and those too were going to be gone sooner or later. They'd erase them like they'd erased the rest of him. One way or another.What he doesn't expect is for them to get the child of a terrorist to work with him. Cold and violent, she's murdered enough people to warrant a spot on Interpol, and she isn't exactly pleasant company either. On a good day, she might say five words to him. On a bad day, she'll say none, and someone will die.But it's for his own benefit, MI6 tells him. Bad enough that there's one of her in the world, without there being dozens of others. Calm and a little too comfortable with murder, the one thing they all share in common is having his blood over their hands. He can only hide for so long. Soon, he'll have to face them head-on and be ready to fight, and when the time comes, he'll no longer be able to say he doesn't have any blood on his hands.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20





	1. Running Is For Cowards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amberlia](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Amberlia).



> A/N: (April 26, 2020)  
> Unfortunately, due to current mental health circumstances, I have decided to take a break from Fall From Grace. This story is a story originally thought up by Amberlia, and she has very generously allowed me to continue it.  
> As you may note, there will be a lot of editing happening, so expect authors' notes from a lot of different dates. This story is not about Mary Sue and no, it’s not a PWP either.  
> On a more cheerful note, this story is equal parts crackheadish humor and dark, serious undertones, which may not be suitable for some people. Warnings now for violence, coarse language at times, and sensitive themes.

**A/N: (April 26, 2020)**

**Unfortunately, due to current mental health circumstances, I have decided to take a break from** **_Fall From Grace._ ** **This story is a story originally thought up by Amberlia, and she has very generously allowed me to continue it.**

**As you may note, there will be a lot of editing happening, so expect authors' notes from a lot of different dates. This story is not about Mary Sue and no, it’s not a PWP either.**

**On a more cheerful note, this story is equal parts crackheadish humor and dark, serious undertones, which may not be suitable for some people. Warnings now for violence, coarse language at times, and sensitive themes.**

_ Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.  _

Stupid, stupid, carelessness is what gets her caught. 

Maybe it was from the weariness of being on the run. Maybe the lack of sleep was catching up to her. Maybe it was because she couldn’t quite shake the paranoid feeling off her back, no matter where she went. 

But she’s barely off the plane into the British Virgin Islands before she registers the airport workers closing in on her, eyes a little too sharp to be merely helpful. She was traveling first class, so the queues were relatively short, but even so, she finds herself wishing that the people in front would just have their passports out and ready to go. 

Maybe she can fake sick. She feels a little ill, anyway, a combination of jet lag, sleep deprivation, and the fact that she hasn’t eaten a good, solid meal in the past seventy-two hours. 

Too late. One of the airport workers steps in front of her, arms crossed with one manicured hand extended out towards her. She looks vaguely unimpressed, maybe a little irritated, but not a threat. 

Not yet. 

“Passport, ma’am?” 

Every instinct in her body screams at her to run, though she’s not sure if she can. So tired. Only a few, light hours of sleep on the plane, waking up at every little disturbance or passing brush. A pounding headache on top of that, owing to the fact that someone’s baby was screaming its head off during the flight. 

“Sure,” Jamuti mumbles, pretending to reach in her pocket for her passport. Instead, she drops her suitcase and runs. 

Weaving through lines of people, she manages to barge right through one security checkpoint. By the time the security guards think to try and stop her or raise an alarm, she’s long gone. 

She’s not sure what tipped them off but it doesn’t matter by this point. As she speed walks, into Duty-Free, she slows down to grab clothing off the racks. It’s the beginning of summer, so there are a lot of people in the airport shop, mainly young families and honeymooning couples. Suitcases and children clutter the aisles, proving to be annoying, but not extremely difficult obstacles to surpass. Besides, it makes it much easier for her to swipe makeup, not bothering to look at the colors. Not caring either. She has some other supplies in the bag, along with another fake identity, one she’d planned to use once she was out of the airport but of course. Things changed. 

Walking forward steadily, she pulls off her jacket, discarding it on the floor behind a rack of clothes. She pulls on the sweatshirt she’d taken, coupling it with the pair of sunglasses already around her neck. Add that with the scarf, her hair coming down lose to hide most of her face, and a bold swipe of lipstick (a garish purple shade, as luck would permit), she was good to go. Pulling the rain cover on over her backpack, she ducks around an employee who was helping a family. 

“Ma’am, you left your things-” a voice calls out to her. Ignoring it, she ducks, blending in with the rest of the crowd that’s exiting the shops. A little shop-lifting isn’t her main concern at the moment, not when they know. Subtlety was exchanged for sheer speed and efficiency. She has to get out. 

There’s no time for her to collect her luggage, not that there was anything much she had there. More clothes, some random, unimportant items to establish her cover a little more. Any important papers she has are zipped up in a plastic baggie, tucked safely away, now in her hoodie pocket. 

Thankfully, there aren’t any more security checks though she knows they’ll be closing in on her quickly. She darts through crowds of people, a slightly harried look on her face with a pace that suggests she has somewhere to be but doesn’t draw too much attention. She’s tall for a girl, especially one her age, so she can pass off as a college student. Maybe she has a boyfriend she has to see. The truth isn’t so far off. 

Tortola was the first option if she wanted to make contact, and it was the option that someone would expect her to head towards, but Andrayus had given her strict instructions to head for Anegada. Of course, the Terrence B. Lettsome Airport was on Beef Island, which meant she’d have to either take a flight (an option now ruled out) or a ferry to get to him. She had the ferry schedule among the papers, not that she needed it. In her own nervousness on the plane, she’d memorized the entire thing. It was a force of habit more than anything else. Yassen had drilled it into her head, drilled it into her that she shouldn’t make it a habit to have papers or physical evidence to back her up. Anything she took, she took with her mind. Paper trails could be traced. Her own memory would prove far more reliable. 

The ferry terminal was close to the airport, but she didn’t know if she could risk being out on foot. Being a harried college student would only take her so far. Still, she realized she had very little choice in the matter. Andrayus was too far away to be of useful backup. If she can make it to the ferry terminal, get on, and blend in with the passengers there, it might give her some time. 

Checking for tails multiple times, she pauses at several shops, pretending to window shop. It’s overkill but she makes it seem like she doesn’t have enough money to pay for things. The look could work for her. Her eyeglasses are cheap, something she’d brought on whim more than actual want. If she’s a college student, especially one in the US, it would make sense for her to not be able to afford things. 

Adding onto her cover, she continues her calm surveillance of the shops. A Coconut Republic. Other miscellaneous shops. She considers darting in and changing outfits, but it’s a greater risk. Her garrish choice in lipstick color is already drawing the attention of a number of young children, though, as expected, their parents pointedly avoid looking at her. Excellent. 

Quickly, she checks a clock, then decides it’s time to go. 

The ferry processing takes a relatively short amount of time. The ticket vendor glances at her once dismissively then accepts her money and hands her a ticket. There’s a line to get on, though it’s not very long. A woman at the front, wearing a uniform and name tag, is checking passports. A regular security measure or something atypical? It’s hard to tell. Jamuti digs her passport out anyway, holding it in her hands with the ferry ticket. Her passport photo shows boredom, a perfectly bland expression on her face. She’s staring off into the distance, a look Yassen had always managed to do, no matter how long the queue line had taken. Was she managing it? She isn’t sure. 

The official gives her a cursory glance at the front of the line, looking equally bored but still slightly suspicious. 

“You speak English?” 

“Yes.” 

“Next.” 

Jamuti accepts her passport. Traveling without Yassen felt weird. It wasn’t that she’d never been without him before. There were many times where she’d been alone and unsupervised, often in unsavory and illegal situations. She’d fought her own way out. Another thing the man had reinforced in her. Resilience. Independence. Survival. But there were some things she couldn’t avoid, and now that the man was dead, she was forced to rely on whatever she could remember about airports and security measures, having to use her own instincts to figure out what was conventional and what could potentially be incriminating. 

The ferry takes off after another fifteen minutes. She’d been one of the last to board, and had spent the time keeping an eye on the sidewalks and people coming onto the ferry. Anegada was a tropical haven, with many romantic resorts, something that had been advertised extensively in the brochures. Many of the passengers are honeymooning couples, with the occasional lone wolf. No one seemed to have any kind of weapon or gun on them, but she maintains a good distance from the rest of the passengers anyway. Finally, an announcement comes on as they get some distance away from the port. She allows herself to relax a little. Taking inventory of the ship, which wasn’t too large, she settled on a bench, leaning against a window. Her final assessment had revealed that the most threatening thing here seemed to be PDA, but still. Never hurt to be careful. 

She’d seen security officials walking up the streets, hands-on their radios. It seemed that the other ferry ports were being shut down, but her ferry had long since left by the time they’d gotten around to the boats near hers. Sure, they might try and stop the passengers from disembarking on Anegada, but she’d take her chances there, with Andrayus for backup. 

The water is a clear blue, translucent in color. She could have enjoyed this. She liked swimming, and underneath different circumstances, she would have loved to come here for maybe a week and explore. It was peaceful. A nice wind whips it’s way around through the open doors of the small cabin in the middle of the ship, smelling like salt. She grabs her phone from her bag, checking for any messages from Andrayus, but there aren’t any. Her eyes, against her own will, flutter shut, a combination of being on the run for weeks with little to no respite. The last time she’d slept in a proper bed had been three days ago, and even then, she’d had to leave earlier than planned. 

“Ma’am?” 

Her eyes snap open, and she registers that there’s someone standing in front of her. A security guard. She tenses, wishing she had her gun. Her hands would do, but it would take longer, draw more attention to her. 

“Yes?” Her voice comes out calm, tinged with an American accent. A nice touch to her cover. Officials were always reluctant to arrest Americans. 

“Would you come with me please?” 

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?” Of course there was a problem. She was only stalling. She studies him quickly, trying to get a gauge. SCORPIA? Could be. “I have all my passports and documents in order…” 

“Can I see them?” 

Nodding, she digs into her pocket, pretending to look. At the same time, her feet shoot out, smashing above the guard’s knees. He stumbles and she gets up, shoving past him. More security guards coming into the cabin. Similar radios to the ones from the airport.

Not SCORPIA, then. SCORPIA wouldn’t be so merciless, no matter the state of the current board. If this were SCORPIA, they’d have blown up the whole boat if it meant that she’d die. Besides, this was sloppy. Even if SCORPIA wanted to abduct her, there were other better ways to do it than confronting her like this. This was much more hastily done. It clicks. The British Virgin Islands. British territory. Most likely MI5 or MI6. Foreign matters, technically. The local police wouldn’t be that interested in her. 

“Stop!” Someone shouts behind her. It’s pointless. She barges into a couple holding hands as she makes her way to the stairs. Ignoring their protests, she throws open the door and vaults over the railing, landing on the flight below. The ferry was a two-tier one, with life rafts on the bottom floor. Not many people were here, opting instead to be on the upper, more scenic deck. Still, she grimaces as she sees a couple with their hands down each other’s pants. 

The lifeboats are where she thought they’d be. She sprints for them. The deck is empty, and the only sound she can hear is the waves. A moment of peace. Not for long. She hears footsteps thudding down the stairs. How many of them are there? Doesn’t matter. If they have guns, it won’t take long for them to subdue her. She doubts they’ll kill her. They’d have to have recognized her, know who she was, even if it was just the broad strokes to take interest in her. And if they wanted to kill her, they’d have shot at her already. 

She fumbles as she tries deploying the raft. 

“Freeze!” 

She stiffens, then turns slowly, hands in the air. The unmistakable click of guns fills the air. Six men stand surrounding her. Overkill, but highly effective. “I surrender,” she says, resigned. “Please don’t shoot.” 

“Turn around slowly with your hands in the air,” one of them instructs off to her side. “Get down on your knees.” 

Jamuti obeys, knowing she has no choice. While she’s doing that, the handles of the bag slip off her shoulders, so it comes to rest on one shoulder. 

“Down!” 

She moves into a slow crouch and then uses her momentum to pretend to stumble. The bag goes sailing over the boat, catching on the safety railing for one agonizing second before disappearing over the edge. She pulls the cord on the side of the bag, watching the rain cover and outer casing of the bag fall away. The inner, waterproof casing remained, with the most important of her things. She’d have to somehow get in contact with Andrayus and ask him to look for it. 

“Hey!” 

“Sorry.” She raises her hands again, showing she means no harm. It works. Even if they have some idea who she is, or what she can do, she’s still a child to them. She turns and hears them barrel forward, feet thumping on the floor of the deck. Strong hands settle around her shoulders, forcing her hands behind her back. The snap of cuffs and metal digging into her skin. 

Someone forces her to her feet. They remove the scarf and the sunglasses, and one of the men tilts her head up, so she’s looking him in the eye. Hard green eyes take her in before the man releases her, giving a grunt. 

“Contact 6,” he says. “We may have just found their little pet assassin.” 

~:~

This is the new normal, Alex reminds himself as Jack steers him through the various racks of clothing. Not getting shot at. Not getting dissected for organs. Shopping, of all things. So mundane compared to the rest of the things he’s done in his life. 

Of course, that didn’t mean it was any easier to do. Escaping down a river on little more than a glorified piece of metal suddenly seemed to be easier than shopping for some decent clothes for school. 

Not his choice, either. He’d woken up that morning, gone down to eat breakfast and Jack had taken one look at him and announced that they’d go shopping. He couldn’t tell if it was because of his choice of clothing (an old flannel shirt that he’d only worn for a week and still smelled relatively fine with a pair of faded school pajama bottoms) or because of the dark circles underneath his eyes and the paleness of his skin. Even he has to admit that it’s more likely the second reason, considering that all he’d done for the past few weeks is wander the house aimlessly at night, sleeping throughout the majority of the day if he didn’t have school. The summer holidays were fast approaching, not that it makes any difference to him. The only positive part of it, he supposes, would be the opportunity to sleep in without having to explain to his teachers why he constantly looked exhausted. The druggie rumors had started up again, with the new story being that he’d gone to the US for expensive rehab therapy, which had been a bunk, apparently. At least it meant that the pushes for him to go into rehab had lessened. To them, Alex Rider, a once straight-A student on the fast-track to entering university, was now someone who had dropped off the curve. Another druggie, someone they’d see on the streets in a couple of years. Pity and give change to, maybe invite for a cup of tea if they were feeling particularly benevolent that day. 

As much as it rankles, he can’t bring himself to care too much. He’s seen how much their opinions mattered in the grand scheme of things, and as much as it might hurt them to know it, they really didn’t matter. Not to their other peers, teachers, or even government, as much as they pretended to care. In this world, the opinions of only those with enough influence to make those opinions a reality were the ones that mattered. Generally, said people were megalomaniacs with money to throw and dreams to make happen. And Alex was generally the person to stop them. 

He yawns, sighing as he catches the third shirt Jack had tossed to him from outside the changing room. It could be worse, he supposes. Jack could be a murderer holding a gun to his head, making him pick clothing. He knows people like that, looking for any new chance they could get to abuse their power. They usually didn’t last long enough to become dictators, but that was mainly because they were shot dead or stopped by MI6. 

He slips out of his current shirt, a plain black one with some kind of band logo on it, as he obligingly puts on the new one. 

“Alex?” 

“Done,” he mumbles, giving himself a look in the mirror. He’s barely come to terms with how horrible and out of it he looks, which means his stomach does a funny flip when he sees how dark the circles around his eyes are, how pale he is. He hasn’t been on an “official” mission in a while, though there was a small stunt he’d done for MI6 a week or so back. No major injuries, but it had meant a week without his PTSD medication, and that didn’t generally mean anything good. It would take awhile to get back used to being in public so casually like this again. “What do you think?” 

“Stylish,” Jack gives him a thumbs up. “I like this one better than the last one.” 

Alex has to agree. Form-fitting clothing has been ruled out for the most part, and so has baggy clothing, so in the four hours they’ve been in the store, they’ve managed to only get one or two good shirts. 

“Well, we can add this to the keep pile,” Jack says, voice still cheerful. He feels a pang of guilt. She’s trying to make this better for his sake, and he’s failing at being appreciative enough about it. “Here’s another one, not really your style, but let’s try it out…” 

“Sure. I just need some air.” He pulls on his own shirt, giving her a small, apologetic smile, and she tries giving him one back, though she looks worried. “It’s nothing. It’s just very hot in here. I’ll just be outside.” 

She nods, and he brushes past the racks of clothing, most of it discarded by previous shoppers until he’s outside of the changing rooms. It’s some kind of panic attack, he recognizes, or maybe a PTSD episode though he doesn’t think that’s it. He’s not supposed to have those so often anymore, not since he’d started attending therapy regularly, and yet, here he is. It doesn’t take him long to find the source of his trigger. The feeling of the changing room had triggered him, reminding of Nile and the cold dark underground cellar, slowly filling up with water. His breathing picks up as he tries to remind himself that it’s just some shirts, nothing to worry about. Jack was right outside, but that only serves to somehow  _ worsen  _ it. It would be like Egypt all over again, wouldn’t it? They’d kill her and make him watch. He’d be helpless to stop them. 

Forcing himself to not go down that road again, he takes a few deep breaths, trying some of the meditation techniques he’d learned at Malagasto. The panic attacks had started a week after he thought Jack had burned in the Egyptian desert and had only escalated since. Despite getting Jack back, and moving back to London where he’d spent countless afternoons in therapy, nothing had really improved. If anything, he thinks, a little irritated, it had served as a simple reminder of how little agency he had over his own life. Given a choice (something that seldom happened), he’d never have spent so much time in air-conditioned offices, talking about all the ways his life was so fucked up. 

Exhaling slowly, he reminds himself that it was, at least, over now. Well, as relatively “over” as it could get. He had a fresh start. A bright future he could at least look forward to, with Mrs. Jones’s promise of minimum MI6 interference as possible. 

With those thoughts to cheer him up, his breathing steadies out enough that he should be able to return without dissolving into a full on attack. Back in the changing room, Jack is on her phone, texting someone. She looks up when he enters, holding up a bright pink shirt, choosing not to comment on his absence. 

Alex groans. This was the fifth time she’s held out something pink, or pinkish colored, out to him. For some reason, Jack kept insisting throughout their shopping trip that it really  _ was  _ his color. “Jack-”

“Just once, Alex, come on,” she holds out the shirt to him, though this was not the first, nor would it be the last time. Reluctantly, he takes it, holding it out at arm’s length. “Pink is supposed to be a calming color anyway. It’ll help you. For therapy.” 

He snorts. “Right. Pink is calming, and so is yellow, blue, green, violet…should I keep going on?” 

“You should have just said so if you wanted purple. There’s a whole rack of them on clearance.” 

Alex shakes his head, pulling the curtain to the cubicle closed. “Forget it.” 

*

Sometime around four, they give up on shopping and instead head through the mall in search of food. Alex’s appetite was a fickle thing. He’d started to eat more since coming back to London with Jack, but what he made up for in calories, he lacked in consistency. This was assuming, of course, that his stomach could handle it without throwing it up less than five minutes after he’d eaten it. 

They’d eventually settled on getting boba. It was one of the few things his stomach could handle (no rolling waves of nausea at the mention of it, at least), and Jack had been dying to visit the new shop establishment anyway. She’d ordered for them, getting herself the coffee flavor, and for him, mango with fruit jelly in it. 

He’d have thought they would finally get to go home now, but it seemed that Jack had other plans. She insisted on walking through the mall, taking their boba with them as they scouted everything out. He’d agreed, albeit reluctantly. Despite everything, it’s hard to not feel exposed here. The mall’s a relatively open area, with walkways stretching around in a pentagon-shaped pattern. The very top of the mall is translucent glass, revealing gray clouds outside. As usual, it looks like it's going to rain. But besides his interest in the weather, another thing of interest is the very top of the mall, not quiet the ceiling but close to it. Makeshift platforms with buckets of paint hang down from the ceiling, supported by ropes. A potential hiding spot for a sniper. 

Realistically, he’s aware that no sniper would try to take him out when there were so many other options available. Still...that didn’t mean it was completely impossible. 

Even now, it feels like someone’s watching him. There’s a prickling feeling on the back of his neck that he can’t let go off, though he does keep turning every few steps, trying to check if there’s anyone behind them. 

Jack notices his skittishness but doesn’t say anything. 

“You hungry?” She asks, pausing absent-mindedly outside a woman’s clothing store. 

“Not really.” Alex takes the hint for what it is, though. One glance at the scantily clad mannequins in the shop window is all he needs. “I’ll meet you here in half an hour.”

“Alright. Call me if you need anything.” 

The warning goes unspoken between them. Stay safe. Stay alert. Don’t do anything stupid, though that mainly only applied to Alex. He nods, and Jack’s face visibly relaxes. She gives him a hug, then goes inside the store. 

With nothing better to do, he walks through the mall, window shopping mostly. It gives him a chance to get farther away from the busier center, and with it, the sniper spot. It’s ambient enough to calm his mind somewhat, though habit still causes him to look over his shoulder every few feet. Yet, he thinks he does a reasonably good job of concealing his own paranoia. A few cursory glances from other shoppers is all he gets. No one’s tailing him, as far as he can tell, and he stays out of areas with a potential for danger. He pauses outside a toy shop, and then after a moment, heads inside. 

Half an hour passes by surprisingly quickly when he’s occupied with figuring out the workings of a yo-yo. He still hasn’t figured out how Smithers had managed to fit so many gadgets and functions inside something as normal as a yo-yo, and the man had disappeared before he’d had the chance to reveal any of his secrets. Not that he would anyway. 

Alex snorts, placing the toy back down again. He exits the shop, going back the way he’s come. Jack likely would be finished with her own personal shopping by now. He pauses, eyes narrowing slightly as he sees the two mall security guards heading right towards him. 

It might be easy to dismiss them. After all, there was a more than fifty percent chance that they could be here for someone else. But no. It always has to be him. His hate-love relationship with Rider luck went both ways. 

He waits, shifting to the side to let the other shoppers get by. If they truly were looking for him, there wasn’t much chance they would grab him in a spot like this. Not with so many people around. And even if they weren’t...all he needs is for them to suspect him to be up to no good. 

Alex’s heart sinks as they continue to get closer, something like recognition setting in their features. This can’t be anything good. 

“Sir,” one of them says, pausing right in front of him. “Will you come with us please?” 

Forcing himself to stay calm and not sprint in the other direction he shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice calmer than he feels. “I was told not to listen to strangers.” 

He doesn’t expect either of them to look so amused, but then one of them pulls out something. Alex tenses, but it’s only an identity card. He holds it out to Alex, who examines it for a moment, before nodding reluctantly. Checks out, at least, though it could always be a fake. Still, he doesn’t want to cause a scene, not here, not right now. It was supposed to be a normal day, for once. Everything had been going so well. Surely, the appearance of two security guards couldn’t ruin anything. 

How he’d like to think that. 

“What’s this for?” He asks, allowing them to lead him somewhere more off to the side.

“Nothing too severe, kid,” the one with the beard says. “We had a shoplifting incident happen in one of the stores and you fit the profile. Just gotta make sure we go through our list of suspects.” 

Alex stares at him for a moment, fury welling up deep inside of him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here. “MI6 sent you, didn’t they?” 

“What?” 

“Don’t lie,” he snarls. “They’re working with the CIA now, aren’t they? You can’t even disguise your fucking American accent.” 

“Sir,” the other ‘security guard’ has a proper Londoner accent, at least. At Alex’s glare, he holds his hands up in a gesture to placate him. “We didn’t mean to upset you. My partner is from the States. I assure you, we are in no way directly involved with intelligence agencies.” 

Fucking bullshit. There were no coincidences. Not in his world. A British and American security guard? In the middle of London? God, did they actually expect him to be this stupid? 

They keep trying to explain, but if the heads of MI6 and the CIA couldn’t get him to come quietly, they sure as hell weren’t going to have much luck either. Alex quickly tunes them out, focusing on his escape route. Somehow, without him even noticing it, they’d managed to bring him to a secluded corner of the mall, one that was empty apart from the vending machines and a few water fountains spaced out feet apart from each other. There’s a door on the extreme end from where he’s standing, but it’s blocked by the two security guards in the front of them. Damn it. How had they managed to corner him? MI6 really sent competent agents to the wrong places, didn’t they?

“Kiddo,” the American one says. “We showed you our badges. We just need to make sure you don’t fit the profile. A nice kid like you shouldn’t have to worry, right?” 

He snorts at this. A nice kid? Had they even read his file? At all? 

An opening pops up as the American guard gestures with his hands, but will he be able to make it? It seems barely big enough for him to fit through but if he barges through...

“Just turn around and get on the ground. Hands on your head. It’ll be easier for all of us, hmm?” 

The gap is quickly closing. It’s now or never. 

“You can call your parents from our office. Let them know the situation. I’m sure they’re wor-” 

Alex doesn’t wait to hear the rest of the sentence. He runs forward, between the two. One of them grabs his arms, while the other fumbles, but he’d expected the move. Wasting no time, he drives a heel back into the knee of the one holding him. The man reels back and he’s released. Twisting, he takes off sprinting, back in towards the mall. 

More families are starting to crowd in here throughout the mall, presumably heading home or out for dinner. It allows him to easily lose himself in the masses, weaving in and out as fluidly as he can. He nearly crashes into a couple of kids his own age holding ice cream cones. Mumbling a quick apology, he continues onwards.

Where was Jack? On the other side of the mall, right? Was she worried about him? Why hadn’t she called yet? 

A horrible thought occurs to him. What if she’d called the mall security guards to find him? Or even worse, they’d detained her. That wouldn’t make his escape any easier. MI6 had a considerable amount of influence over other forms of law enforcement. Or they could always fabricate a crime or some other sob story. A petty shoplifter or a lost child, something the public wouldn’t mind apprehending if seen. 

No. If they caught wind of this, he wouldn’t just have two pursuers, he’d have hundreds of others, in the form of well-meaning civilians and security cameras. He briefly slows, glancing back to see the progress of his pursuers, but the crowds are too thick. He turns away again, continuing forward.

Sweat runs down the back of his neck, wetting the neck of his shirt. Everything is too loud and close. He needs to get away somewhere, and fast.

Alex ducks away to the side. Where was that damned lingerie shop again? He turns, or tries to. 

“Keep walking, kiddo,” the American guard says, sounding a little too friendly for the vice-like grip he has on Alex’s arm. Downright inappropriate, in Alex’s opinion, but then again, this whole thing could hardly be classified as “legal.” “My partner is right behind me.” 

Having no choice, Alex obeys. He realizes that they’re trying to isolate him again. Of course, they needn’t bother, considering that the mall is now packed enough that people barely spare him a glance before they continue. More sweat drips down his back, and he uses his other hand to wipe it away. 

They pass the security office, and for a brief moment, he lets himself think that this really was just for shoplifting. That this had nothing to do with MI6. 

But then they keep walking, passing the office, and his heart sinks. 

“Where are we going?” He asks, trying to twist around. As if he doesn’t know already. The grip on his arm tightens, becoming borderline painful. “You can’t do this!” 

Neither of them responds to him. He gives a good jerk, finally freeing himself from their grip. Despite the amount of weight he’s lost, he’s nearing his full adult height and with a considerable amount of bulk on him to add, it’s enough to deter most people from handling him too roughly. Something which MI6 could no longer use him for, though bless the bastards, they’d still try. 

Turning, he finds that both are pointing guns at him. 

Rolling his eyes, he crosses his arms, waiting for them to shoot at him. If they truly wanted him dead, they’d have shot him by now. 

“Kiddo, we don’t want to have to shoot you but-”

He doesn’t wait for the man to finish his sentence. 

Instead, he lashes out with a spinning hook kick, catching the American guard across the head. The American guard stumbles back, and Alex bolts. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get very far. With a speed he doesn’t expect them to react with, one of them grabs him around the arms, and the other quickly puts him into a hold. He struggles, already tensing in a karate position designed to knock them away, but the press of a needle into his neck puts all efforts to a halt. 

Shit. 

He doesn’t even bother shouting. Instead, he allows himself to slump, letting the effects of the needle make him drowsy. He blinks, trying to keep his consciousness for as long as possible. 

But eventually, he drifts away into a dreamless sleep. 

~:~

Aasha Kathmar was not a woman prone to fits of strong emotion. Being assistant to the director of MI6 meant she’d long since learned to curb even her most wild impulses. Sitting through meetings with politicians with their heads too stuck up their arses to even consider the good of the country over individual interests was enough to train even the most hot-headed person in self-control. 

But the picture in front of her was another matter. 

There were multiple of them in the folder Aasha had been provided, but one was she needed to confirm who this was. 

“Did we identify a name?” She asks finally, aware of Mrs. Jones’s dark eyes taking her in. Watching her reaction. 

“Jamuti Gregorovich. The daughter of Yassen Gregorovich.” 

Aasha exhales. “My niece,” she says. Her tone is completely devoid of any emotion. Her eyes trace the photo, noting the way the girl looks like Natasha so much that for a moment, it’s like seeing her sister alive again. Almost. The girl’s features mainly belong to her mother, from the slightly harsh dip of cheekbones to the same golden-brown eyes that have a bleak, but strange sharpness to them. She resists the urge to rub at the sudden headache that’s forming in her head. “How did we find her?” 

“Sheer opportune moment, mainly. A week ago, our hackers finally managed to access some SCORPIA files before we got shut out again. Their databases were weak.” Mrs. Jones sighs, a faint look of annoyance creasing her features. “Of course, the new board scrapped the entire database and technology, and now it’s archived offline. Among some of the files, we found were files of the children of the old board and it’s operatives. It’s hardly a surprise that there were any to begin with. We’ve known that they had children, though we haven’t been able to identify many of them. An additional data leak from our side released the files, and we’re currently looking for the mole.” 

Aasha nods. “My niece, Jamuti, was in there?” 

Mrs. Jones nods, face impassive. “She was denoted as ‘Carinatus,’ a code name. Her father’s was Cossack. In the files we’ve found, we can confirm with textual evidence that she has been involved in at least nine different separate instances of terrorism. The charges of conspiracy against world governments alone would send her to prison for the rest of her life. And she’s in our custody.” 

Aasha smiles a touch nastily. “And I suppose the Americans had something to say about this?” 

“They had plenty, but we’ve made it explicitly clear that we are underneath no obligation to share custody.” Looking significantly more pleased, she slides the photo back towards herself, before tucking it back into the file. “We were lucky to get such a good shot of identification. One of our agents had thought he’d identified her as someone of interest, but this was the confirmation we needed.”

“I thought she would be dead by now.” 

“Apparently not. We were well aware that Gregorovich had a child with him. Unfortunately, the child was too well protected for us to get proper DNA analysis or photos. It was unknown if the child even was his.” She pauses. “Until now. Gregorvoich’s death marked the beginning of the fall of SCORPIA. The timeline matches up. Much of the old board is in prison or dead. It seems that Gregorovich’s daughter decided to flee.” 

“And we’re sure it’s her?” She can’t quite keep the grimace off her face as she says it is. The girl looks like Natasha, for sure, but there was always the tiniest of distinct possibilities that her sister most certainly had  _ not  _ slept with one of the world’s most notorious criminals. 

“Further DNA testing will be necessary,” Mrs. Jones admits, “but other reports seem to line up. We have yet to ask any of the previous board, but I believe they’re inclined to agree. Our analysts are cross-referencing it right now, but there’s not much to work with.” 

Aasha says nothing further as she goes through the other photos. Another photo, snapped off with the girl’s back (Jamuti) turned.  _ She has her hair,  _ she realizes, with a stab of something sharp like grief. She pushes it away. No time to get sentimental now. Natasha had made her choice and Aasha had made hers. Whatever consequences came from those actions was entirely her problem. 

Picking up the third photo, she’s aware that Mrs. Jones is watching her reaction. Probably to see if her emotions will affect her judgment. Aasha doesn’t really care about the stupid child, never having met her, and this photo merely shows her handing off something to someone of the screen, and the fourth shows her running. 

“Why are you showing me this?” Aasha asks, finally, forcing her eyes to focus on Mrs. Jones again. “Besides the obvious, of course. What use can Gregorovich’s daughter be to us? Do you think she’ll crack under interrogation?” 

If Mrs. Jones is surprised at the way she chose to address the girl, she doesn’t show it. “For interrogation, it’ worth a try. She’s still young and impressionable. We have a chance. As for other uses...well, she is Malagasto trained, with Gregorovich’s own training to supplement. A potential killer, to boot.” 

“You suggest we hire her?” 

“Not hire. But she might just be the incentive. Just the thing we need for Alex Rider.” 

“Alex Rider?” 

“He’s no longer a child.” Mrs. Jones sighs.“He looks five years older than he’s supposed to. Our usual cover stories aren’t going to work any more, and he can’t keep refusing to not kill during missions. His skills will also need to be updated. He’s shown positive growth during his time at Malagasto. Having a fellow graduate, one who’s his age, can influence him in more ways than one. Besides,” and here, Mrs. Jones pauses, seeming to hesitate for the briefest of moments. “He has a history with Gregorovich.” 

“The father-?” 

“Both Alex’s father and Jamuti’s worked together. Alex’s father mentored hers.” 

A personal connection. It makes sense. Aasha nods, attention moving from the initial shock of seeing her niece, to Rider. She’d been in the position for only four months, but she still couldn’t quite shake her impression of the unsmiling, wary British teen. Nearly six feet tall, with a body too developed for a boy of his age, he’d merely nodded at her politely while she’d been left staring at him as he walked into the Head of MI6’s Office without knocking. “You think she can train him?” 

“Not just train. Work with.” 

“Work with-?” Aasha blinks. “Maybe my memory is mistaken, but wasn’t Gregorovich the one who assassinated Rider’s uncle? And then wasn’t Rider on the plane when Gregorovich died? Personal connection or not, the negative...repercussions of both sides could win out against anything else.” 

Mrs. Jones nods. “There will be some...drawbacks.” 

Right. Assuming neither of them tries to kill the other, the plan will work splendidly. “And how do you expect her to cooperate? She is ex-SCORPIA, after all.” 

“We believe that she may be more inclined to agree to work with us if she has a series of demands she wants met. She hasn’t spoken once while in custody. Currently, she’s on a plane. She was detained in the British Virgin Islands sometime early this morning. If she’s on the run from the Board, we can negotiate an offer with her. Protective custody, or a new identity altogether. Citizenship to the UK. Given her current situation, she may be much more inclined to agree.” 

Aasha runs through the information, considering and sizing it up carefully. It was one of the reasons she’d been hired. A math major with a talent for comparing odds, knowing when to take the right kinds of gambles, and decline the wrong kinds, she has to grudgingly admit that for MI6’s best interests, the plan wasn’t...bad. If Jamuti refused, there was always the option to keep her locked up in custody for the rest of her life, assuming, she thought, SCORPIA didn’t get to her first. Even that might not be a loss in itself. “Does anyone else have any idea?” 

“Of our custody? The CIA, but that’s mainly because they were aware she was in South America before that. Unless they’d tailed her all the way to the Islands, they can’t claim to have any kind of jurisdiction over her, especially since was placed in custody in our territory. Jamuti was very well disguised. Our official files haven’t even been updated. It’s off-grid, as off now, at least.” 

_ One good thing out of this whole mess.  _ Aasha folds her hands. She was reasonably confident that MI6 would get whatever information they needed from Jamuti, at least before she died. As for the whole hiring thing...possible, though the chances of success were low. She’d run the exact numbers of it later. 

“Seems reasonable to me. But where do I come into this? I assume you told me because you believe it will have some relevance.” Other things go without saying. MI6 mainly operated on a strict need-to-know basis, and though she was the right-hand of Mrs. Jones, information still wasn’t handed freely to her. She generally had to take part in something to get it. Crawley generally handled the interrogation of special prisoners. If not him, there were others. More qualified than her, too. Even Mrs. Jones was better at it than her. But, she quickly realizes, Gregorovich had not been a big fan of MI6. And he might have raised his own spawn in the same way. 

Mrs. Jones voices none of this out loud. Probably expects her to figure it out by herself. Aasha can see her mouth working on a peppermint, the scent strong even from here. “She is your niece.” 

_ Unfortunately.  _ Natasha had disappeared nearly sixteen years ago, showing up only once with the brat in tow. Even then, the child had managed to be an insufferable thing. Of course, she’s too professional to voice these thoughts out loud, so she settles for a slow nod. 

“We think that it would work better if she has a personal connection.” 

“The Nightshade case.” 

“Alex was able to reach the suppressed memories of Frederick Grey by handing him a toy from childhood. This might work the same way. Of course, Jamuti doesn’t appear to be brainwashed, but that all depends on the extent of what Gregorovich has told her.” 

“I’ve never met the child before in my life.” A lie. Aside from the obvious differences as she’d grown up, there was no doubt about it. This was the same child from nearly ten years ago. “We’ve never met before. Nat-my sister never sent any photos. We didn’t keep in contact at all.” 

Mrs. Jones, once again, doesn’t say anything at the harshness of her tone. Aasha forces herself to calm down. See this as an opportunity rather as a punishment. “You look similar enough to her mother that she may remember something. Gregorovich may have told her something about her, something we can use to our advantage.” 

Natasha. Stupid Natasha, dragging her into the shitstorms she’d managed to stir up. The same as always. She feels fury, bitter anger and rage, all well up at once in an ugly ball of emotion, but she forces herself to remember what’s at stake here. 

“Yes,” she agrees. “Of course. That makes sense.” 

“Excellent,” Mrs. Jones says, briskly. Aasha watches as she unwraps another peppermint, popping it into her mouth. So far, she’s counted three disappearing into the woman’s mouth.  _ Does she have no concern for diabetes? Or her widening figure?  _ “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the confidentiality of this?” 

“No.” Besides signing the Official Secrets Act, Aasha had no reason to tell anyone of her business at work. Of course, there were times when her own parents got a little too persistent, but they were easy enough to distract. 

“It’s settled then,” Mrs. Jones smiles. “Alex Rider will be informed about the situation soon. As soon as Jamuti is securely in our holding facility, I’ll arrange for you to visit. We’ll be meeting her sometime soon. I’ll let you know any further details.” 

And with that, she’s dismissed with little more than a nod. 

~:~

**A/N: (July 23rd, 2020) Questions? Comments? Thoughts? All are appreciated! Feel free to leave any feedback on things you liked/want to be improved. I’ll try to respond to reviews as soon as I can. :)**

**Further notes:**

  * **It’s 12:15 where I am right now. I don’t even know why I’m still working this late.**



**Edited: November 28th, 2020**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (July 23rd, 2020) Questions? Comments? Thoughts? All are appreciated! Feel free to leave any feedback on things you liked/want improved. I’ll try to respond to reviews as soon as I can. :)  
> Further notes:  
> It’s 12:15 where I am right now. I don’t even know why I’m still working this late.


	2. All For The Terrorists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (April 27th, 2020) Off to a good start! As you guys can probably see, a lot of the chapters are prewritten. This makes it easier for me to go back and make necessary edits without having to delete and replace entire chapters on the site. 

Bloody hell. 

He wakes up with a pounding headache in an all too familiar office, facing an all too familiar woman. Wincing, he stretches, almost surprised by the lack of handcuffs. Of course, knowing where he was, he wouldn’t be needing them. 

“Good evening, Alex,” a quiet voice says. 

Alex forces his expression to remain carefully neutral as he raises his head. This is hard to do, considering the fact that he was very much here against his will. Given a choice, he would happily never have come back to the Royal and General Bank, except maybe to receive Ian’s inheritance. Even then, if there was the option to complete the transaction electronically, rather than in person, he’d happily seize it. 

He glances around. The office is mostly unchanged since his last visit, the only difference being that the window blinds are dark grey instead of the previous off white, and the walls are covered in random seascape paintings. Alex recognizes one of them from the Coast of Mallorca. 

“It’s good to meet you again, Mrs. Jones,” he finally says, having stalled to the maximum. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Mrs. Jones, dressed in a dark power suit, tilts her head. “Any reason you haven’t been reachable by phone?” 

“I was out. Shopping.” He narrows his eyes. “But you probably already knew that.”

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she pulls open a drawer behind her desk, reaching in before taking something out. Alex’s eyes narrow further at the sight of the plain manilla folder inside. On the top right-hand corner is a black S, for secret. 

“As you may know-” 

“Wait a minute,” he interjects. “I never agreed to anything here.” 

Mrs. Jones smiles thinly. “I think we can skip that formality, Alex, knowing you.” 

“You don’t know me at all. I never said yes, or agreed to come here. Your...agents knocked me out and brought me here.” His scowl deepens. “If anything, I don’t have to listen to you. I’m done, remember? No more. You promised.” 

Mrs. Jones nods. If Alex believed that the woman might be capable of emotion other than mild interest and bland curiosity, he might think that she looked almost...bitter. Alex remembers that day after Nightshade had happened. He’d signed a contract. He remembers the slightly thick piece of paper, fresh out of the printer because he’d told them they could bloody shove the contract they’d drafted up where the sun doesn’t shine. He’d made up his own terms and conditions and he’d set them himself, and MI6 had no choice but to agree if they even wanted his further cooperation. Alex was no expert in contracts and there hadn’t even been a lawyer present, though, with the way MI6’s hands were tied when it came to him, they might just have granted his request if he asked for one. Of course, it would have to be one of their own lawyers. 

Still, it wasn’t very hard to draft up some conditions. All he had to do was write them down and then present them to Mrs. Jones, who’d nodded and had the whole thing turned into a whole other contract. Most of his terms related to basic human rights, which, shockingly, was something he’d had to explicitly make clear. Healthcare. Leave off at least three weeks between missions. Payment. And finally, his staunch refusal to participate in any mission that wasn’t related to Nightshade. He remembers his promise to Ms. Jones, and it was one he intended on keeping, now that he’d seen how bad those children had it, but at the same time, he wanted a life too. It’s childish, he knows, but it wasn’t fair that the very kids that Nightshade rescued would go on and get to live their lives while he gave up his own. 

All in the name of Queen and Country. 

“Well, this isn’t about any kind of mission, Alex,” she finally says, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes. That’s what she always said, words he would remember with no little amount of bitterness as he hid from the latest batch of bad guys trying to do something to the world. “It’s something I think that will merely interest you.” 

“Right,” Alex snorts, leaning back. “And I suppose this thing of interest will just so happen to get me involved in some kind of mission?” 

“Not necessarily.” 

“You always know what to do to reassure me, Mrs. Jones.” At her flat look, he sighs. He supposes he should let her have this tiny victory. He already knows what his answer is going to be a firm “fuck no.” Might as well just get it over with and leave. Nothing was forcing him to stay; it was just professional courtesy for the sake of maintaining good terms with her that he was staying now. “What is it this time?” 

Mrs. Jones clears her throat. “As I was saying, the Board of SCORPIA, for the most part, is eliminated. We’re sharing custody with six other intelligence agencies. Many of the members are being interrogated as we speak.” 

Despite himself, a flicker of curiosity worms it’s way into his mind. It wasn’t exactly a secret that many of SCORPIA was in custody, but up until this point, he’d never been told the exact details and he knew better than to ask. “And?” 

Mrs. Jones clears her throat. “Were you aware of the presence of any other children when you were at Malagasto?” 

“Children at Malagasto?” He blinks. “No. As far as I know, it was only me. That’s kind of why they took me in the first place. Wait. Are you saying-?” 

She nods, smiling a little wryly. “Yes. Even SCORPIA operatives, on occasion, have children. Not all of them chose to do so, and most aren’t married. From what our reports indicate, a lot of lower-ranking members tend to have families with children, but these aren’t of much importance to us at the moment. Our focus is primarily on the Board and it’s high ranking operatives.” 

Alex raises his eyebrows, waiting for her to go on. 

“It’s uncommon for the Board to have children, but from what we’ve seen, out of the twelve original members, seven had children, and five of those have children that are still alive.” She pushes the folder towards him and he opens it. Inside is a thin stack of papers, stapled together. He opens to a random page with photos and names, most of which he doesn’t recognize. He makes no move yet to flip through the rest of it. “All five of those children are currently missing.” 

Well, that was just wonderful. He lets his hand drop back down to his side, eyebrows raising in a thoroughly unimpressed manner. 

“What about the operatives?” Curiosity growing, he flips the booklet back open, seeing a name that he recognizes, though it isn’t exactly a nice realization, considering that the person’s mother had tried to kill him once before. “ANDRAYUS ROTHMAN” is written at the top of the page. A picture of a dark-haired boy with a dazzling white smile accompanies it. He looks like his mother, disturbingly so, even. Some people just weren’t meant to resemble their parents, especially if their parents were internationally wanted criminals. 

“We aren’t sure how many elite operatives there are, or rather, were. Our estimates put the number in the thirties, at least, considering the different centers SCORPIA has. The most notable you may know already. Flip towards the end.” 

Alex does, whipping past pages of other photos, some of which he thinks he knows. Most likely because their parents had tried to have him dead before, or because they really, really hated his dad. Not that he blames them; his dad did sound like a prat, all things considered, but he was a prat who loved his family more than a criminal organization, and really, who could blame him for that? It was all very wholesome and Hallmark, though the happy ending was ruined slightly by the fact that he’d eventually been blown to bits. 

He pauses at the end. Stares for a moment. Wonders if he’s not just seeing things. 

“Nile has a kid?” 

“Kids. He has two.” 

Alex doesn’t know how to respond to this information. Cursing was a possibility. So was running out of there, which really, he should have done as soon as he heard the words “SCORPIA” and “children” in the same sentence. Yet, he remains frozen, his feet glued firmly to the floor underneath his feet. 

Sure enough, on the page, are two photos, one of a boy and the other of a girl, both dark-skinned with curly black hair and glittering brown eyes. The boy is smirking lazily; the girl is looking off to the side. Underneath the photos, someone has written something in neat large print. Leo and Leona. Code names or their actual names? It’s hard to tell. 

He’d never taken Nile as much of the fatherly type. The man had been content to lock a fourteen-year-old in an underground cell, leaving him to drown. The man was lethal. Friendly when he wanted to be, kind of like a real father, but when it came down to it, a deadly weapon capable of extraordinary amounts of violence. Talking back must have been an interesting experience in that household. 

Alex had sworn to not get involved, but now he can kind of see what Mrs. Jones had meant. He has so many questions all of a sudden. Did Nile throw sandals like Ian did when he was mad, or did he use shurikens? What about bad grades? Were they grounded or locked up in the basement, left to get out by themselves? 

A twinge in his chest makes him suck in his own breath a little more deeply as he remembers the oppressive weight of the water, slowly rising. Eventually, it would get higher, over his head and he would be trapped. 

He tries to focus on his breathing. 

“That’s...interesting,” he finally says, hoping Mrs. Jones doesn’t notice how it sounds like he’s just run a marathon. “I never met them while I was at Malagasto.” 

“It’s possible they were elsewhere at the time.” 

Exhaling, he nods. Makes sense. Knowing his own track record, he wouldn’t want to be around for the kind of shit show he generally liked to get involved in.

Alex moves to close the file, still trying to keep his breathing steady. “Why are you telling me this? Don’t tell me you want to find them or something.” 

“Flip to the last page, Alex.” 

Alex does. The picture of a young girl stares out at him from the page. Her eyes are a warm shade of golden brown, though they have a strangely empty quality to them. She’s not smiling. He huffs, reluctantly amused. “I didn’t know SCORPIA did school photos.” 

“Read the name.” 

“Carinatus,” he reads. “Isn’t that a type of-” 

He stops. Looks at the photo again before going back to the name underneath the first. 

Gregorovich. 

Oh, fucking hell. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” There were probably absolutely tone-deaf singers out there with a voice less flat than his was currently. He resists the urge to fling the folder away from him even as he feels his heart begin to pound. An involuntary thrill of fear goes up his spine, “How the hell do you even know if it’s correct?” 

“This information came from files that were leaked from SCORPIA by a mole. An insider.” 

“Right, and we’re going to believe them because SCORPIA is  _ so  _ reliable these days, aren’t they?” He taps the picture. “Look at that and tell me if she even looks anything like Yassen.” 

“DNA testing is something we’ll be doing.” 

“It’s something you should have done already before you dragged me here.” 

“Perhaps we should have,” she sounds utterly unconcerned. “We thought you might want to know.” 

_ I do, damn it,  _ he thinks, trying not to let his frustration show. It was nearly eight on a school night, he still had a boatload of homework to get to, and here he was, getting involved with the lives of terrorists. The irritating part was how enthralling it actually was. 

Something she said registers to him. “She’s in your custody already?” 

“She was arrested this afternoon in the British Virgin Islands.” 

That meant they’d sent for him immediately. It makes sense, given the hasty and extremely poor nature of his abduction. 

“Well, isn’t that nice. And what? I’m supposed to go to prison with her and buddy buddy with her again? Is that why I’m here?” 

“No. But if you’re interested in meeting her, we’d be happy to arrange a meeting for the two of you.” 

He stares at her for a moment, wondering if she’s actually being serious. She can’t be. Even with his suicidal tendencies of getting into danger, as well as the fact that he was, of all things, a  _ Rider, _ why would he go and voluntarily meet the daughter of his uncle’s killer? Even if said killer had saved his life twice before. It was like he was inviting trouble for himself. Practically throwing the doors wide open, baiting himself with meat while shouting, “Come get me!” 

“You’ve...got to be joking.” He laughs, sounding hysterical even to his own ears. 

“On the contrary, I’m not.” 

“Why the hell would I do something so stupid? I mean, for one, I never knew that...Yassen had a daughter. For another, I watched him as he  _ bled  _ out on a plane. Even if they have some kind of estranged relationship-” 

“They don’t.” 

“But even if they did, I wouldn’t just go up to her and say, ‘Hi, I’m Alex Rider. Nice to meet you. Did you know that I was there the day your dad died?’” He shakes his head. “She’d probably shoot me or something.” 

Mrs. Jones, ever the reassuring figure, doesn’t deny it. Instead, she nods. She’d never last long in customer service. “I understand your concerns. In that case, I’ll arrange for her to be handcuffed.” 

Deciding that for now, he’d ignore the implications that they’d planned to put him in a room with Yassen Gregorovich’s daughter,  _ uncuffed,  _ he leans forward, sliding the folder back towards her. 

“Do you hear yourself right now?” 

“Yes, I do, Alex. I have ears.” She smiles faintly at his expression. “It was only a suggestion since I know about your relationship with Mr. Gregorovich.” 

Alex snorts, resisting the urge to say that there had been no relationship. Alex had started out hating the man for killing his uncle, but then he’d taken a bullet for both Alex and Sabina. His feelings were closer to neutrality now. As for Yassen...well, he’d clearly been attached to Alex’s father in a way. 

Yet despite knowing that the man wouldn’t have killed him, Alex still slept better at night knowing that the man was no longer alive. 

Though there’s a tinge of something else there, too, something he doesn’t want to consider for too long. 

“We rarely get someone like this in custody, and that, too, alive.” 

Alex has to agree. Generally, people died in custody. Either MI6 was even shittier at human interaction than he’d previously thought, driving their prisoners to suicide, or the prisoners killed themselves or were killed before they could spill any type of important information. 

As tempting as it is to go with the first option, it’s more likely to be the latter. 

“Well, that’s very nice and all, but have we considered this-that maybe she doesn’t really want to meet me? What am I supposed to do? What are we supposed to talk about? You think she’s interested in football? Forget it.” 

Mrs. Jones doesn’t say anything as he stands up. He’s been brought here enough times before to know when he could leave, and when he couldn’t. A glance at the clock on the wall shows that it’s close to eight-thirty now. Jack would probably be home now, making dinner and wondering where he was. 

He pats his pockets. “Where’s my phone?” 

“It’s outside. Someone will hand you your things. It was nice talking to you, Alex.”

He snorts. “Can’t really say the same, can I?” He opens the door. “Next time, just call.” 

She bows her head faintly at this, just enough for him to know that she’s acknowledged what he’d said. Not that he expects her to pay any mind to it. They were the epitome of “in through one ear and out the other.” In a day’s time, she might deny even hearing it in the first place. 

“Have a good night, Mrs. Jones.” 

“Wait, Alex. One more thing.” She gets up, picking up the file. “I want to give this to you. Read it over. You might find something of interest.” 

He glances at it briefly. “You’re trusting me with this?” 

“Just read through it. Tell me if you change your mind.”

She must really be desperate if she thinks that she can sway him over with the lucrative secrets of a file. Desperate, and a little deranged. Poor risk-assessment, as some of his therapists would say, handing a secret file to a fifteen-year-old to take home for some bedtime reading. 

He accepts it. 

*

Amazingly enough, Alex doesn’t get shot at, kidnapped, or assaulted even once on the way home. A hopeful sign, maybe, or a sign that Jack was going to absolutely murder him when he got home. 

It was either that or some deranged criminal with a grudge. He supposes he should be more grateful, though give her the chance and Jack could be absolutely  _ deadly  _ with a wooden spoon. 

The lights are on inside the house when he gets there. 

Pulling his key out of his pocket, he tries to open the door as quietly as he could. Getting inside, he slips off his shoes, leaving his socks on. So far, so good. If he played this right, maybe he could-

“Alexander Rider! Where the hell have you been for the past four hours?” 

Never mind. He was so fucked. 

Turning slowly, he gives Jack a wane smile. “I, um, got a bit lost.” 

“Lost.” 

“May have accidentally wandered out the mall for a bit.” He cowers underneath the glare she gives him. “I’m not even lying this time!” 

“This time?” She raises an eyebrow. 

Fucking hell, why was he exposing himself like this? “Not that there was a ‘last time’, I was just, um…” he trails off when she crosses her arms. “Okay, to tell you the truth-” 

“Which you should be doing anyway.” 

“Right, yeah, which I do anyway, except for this  _ one  _ time. Honest. I promise.” 

“And your promises mean so much, don’t they?” 

Ouch. He winces. This was the first indication that she’d given that she was seriously pissed. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised. Maybe he’d expected her to kind of...get used to it? It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d disappeared off to somewhere for a few hours. “Sorry. But I swear, I didn’t do anything this time.” 

“Really? No chasing anyone down?” 

“You make it seem like I do that all the time.” 

Jack crosses her arms. Her eyes are colder than usual. “Maybe it’s because you do.” 

“It’s not my fault!” 

“Dinner will be ready in five minutes. We’re having fish and chips. Wash up and come down.” 

Alex stares at her in disbelief as she leaves him standing in the foyer. Why was she angry at him? She made it seem like he had done it on purpose, though, to be fair, oftentimes, that was kind of what happened. But this time it was MI6, not him, who’d forcibly pulled him away. 

It wasn’t fair. Why should he be blamed because MI6 had some new fucked up offer? 

Furious not only with himself but also with Mrs. Jones (were phone rates really so high now that she couldn’t leave one thirty-second message on the phone?), he doesn’t even bother putting his shoes away properly. Instead, he heads up the stairs, resisting the urge to slam his bedroom door shut. 

All this for a bloody terrorist, too. 

Stripping off his shirt, he opens his drawer and shoves the file inside. It was a shame they’d closed up the fireplace now that it was warmer outside; the file would have made some good kindling. He takes a quick shower as he runs through satisfying revenge plots against Jones. It’s not the first time he’s done something like this against MI6 agents, but it never failed to make him satisfied. He can’t bring it in himself to have much pity for them. Arguably, the lower agents and desk workers didn’t have it coming, considering the fact that they just followed Jones’ orders, but also arguably, they had  _ eyes  _ and  _ common sense,  _ so really, they should have better sense than to try and recruit a minor into whatever stupid schemes they were thinking next. The worst part was the childish treatment as if they actually expected him to fall for their cover stories. Well, if they were going to treat him like a child, he’d act like a child. 

He knows there’s a vent in Mrs. Jones's office. Too small to fit himself through, especially now with his growth spurt. If he could somehow get some fish or meat up there, the putrid smell would be enough to drive her out for days. But no, that would be obvious after a while. 

Another idea pops up in his head. it'll just take a little bit of work to pull off, but if it went according to plan...the effects would be so worth it. 

But even with the promise of well-earned revenge, it’s not enough to lighten the mood at dinner. Jack barely looks at him and when she’s done, she throws the container in the trash, heading upstairs. He doesn’t try to broach the subject of an apology right now. Jack needed time to cool off. 

Ignoring the stab of something sharp in his chest (she’d never been this angry at him, not even when he’d accidentally blown up their microwave with those eggs when he was ten), he throws his container away before grabbing the can of air freshener from the downstairs bathroom. 

He goes back to his room, shutting the door. The time on his clock shows that it’s nearly ten. Sighing, he opens his school bag to finish his homework assignments, starting on any he hadn’t done yet. 

An hour later, he’s still struggling through an essay for history. Rubbing his forehead, he stretches his hand, trying to get rid of the cramps in his hand. Outside his window, the streetlights are turned on, and a thin sheen of water covers the roads as if it had recently rained. It probably had and he hadn’t even noticed. 

Everything is quiet, a little too quiet for his liking. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear the rumble of a car as it drives further and further away. 

Stretching, he turns back towards the essay. He can’t hear anything from the hallway either, so either Jack has fallen asleep or was reading. He should go apologize. There’s a pit in his stomach; he feels like an asshole. Surely he could have asked to call her or something. 

Stupid Jones. Stupid MI6. Stupid life. 

Alex rubs his eyes, then pulls the file out from his drawer. He could arse out something for his essay later, or maybe never. His history teacher was retiring soon anyway, and it was clear by the topic of the essay-discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having summer holidays. Alex, surprisingly, had done well with disadvantages but was now struggling with the “advantages part.” He was hardly to blame here, however. Most of his summer holidays were spent on some stint for MI6, and that could hardly be counted as something he would consider an advantage. 

He forces himself to start from the beginning of the file. The first few pages mainly talk about the timeline of events, most of which he already knows about. It feels weird to see “Yassen Gregorovich’s” name with his own, even if it is only a few rudimentary sentences. 

** Yassen Gregorovich dead. Alex Rider recovered successfully. See (Damian Cray).  **

Then after that, the events of meeting SCORPIA and nearly getting killed by Nile. Fun times. 

Julia Rothman’s death is listed there too. 

He remembers the dark-haired boy who looked like her. Who was the person who had to break the news to him? Despite the circumstances, he finds himself wincing in sympathy. He’d heard about Ian in the same way, and to say it had been unpleasant was an understatement. In his personal opinion, telling a kid that their relative had died by showing up at their house in police cars with the sirens blaring was quite possibly, one of the worst ways to tell them. 

Of course, that wouldn’t have been the case for the other boy. Most likely, someone from SCORPIA would have spoken with him or maybe he’d have heard it from a report. Alex doesn’t dwell on it for too long. 

He finally gets to 2015. 

** Early March-first evidence of the New Board (see “New Board”).  **

** New Board: Instigated. Known members:  **

  * **Tamaz Abhkhazi**
  * **Joseph Doherty**
  * **Ralph Lastra**
  * **Galina Noor**
  * **Katina Noor**
  * **Inna Noor**
  * **Daniel Smith**



Alex frowns. Out of all the names, he only recognizes one. Daniel Smith had been in the news last year for tax fraud. The details of it are vague; truth be told, he hadn’t really given it much thought, but he did remember thinking that MI6 must have something to do with it, considering the sudden bustle of activity in their offices. He suppresses the urge to log onto his laptop and search up all the names. MI6 hadn’t exactly been discreet in monitoring his internet search activity, because they’d actually called a psychiatrist to evaluate him after he spent eight hours watching the movie 1917. Contrary to what they thought, it had been for a school assignment. He’d left the movie running in the background and gone off to do something else, forgetting all about it until later. The fact that MI6 had been concerned about something as banal as this, rather than the other highly questionable activities he engaged in daily, really said something. 

Still, he pulls out a notebook from his desk drawer. He has an abundance, all from his time in therapy where the therapist had asked him to write down his emotions or whatever. He’d given up on the first page in most of them, and the notebooks were mostly forgotten about. At least now they’d have a purpose. 

He notes down all the names, then reads the next paragraph. 

** Many SCORPIA operations were shut down, including those in Europe and the Middle East. Many of these operations included, but weren’t limited to: drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal organ trade, prostitution, and weapons dealing (see “Full List” at the bottom for details).  **

Alex rather decided he would not. 

** However, operations in Australia, Asia, North, and South America have yet to be resolved. Winston Yu, though dead, has independent remnants of the Snakehead in parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. Efforts by the ASIS to round up these branches have so far proved unsuccessful.  **

The next few pages were dedicated exclusively to talking about “clean-up” operations and arrests. Surprisingly enough, authorities had done a good job of taking care of the “major players,” as Alex dubs them. Kurst had been arrested. Yermalov too. Some other elite operatives. A few in-progress operations. 

There are a few names he doesn’t see on the sheet, the first being that of Dr. Three. That was mildly...concerning. Out of the entire board, he wasn’t the one most likely to come after Alex (that title proudly went to Kurst). Nor was he someone who would target him specifically for vengeance. That was based more on a hunch; he remembers that Dr. Three had more than one primary source of income, so the fall of SCORPIA, though annoying, wouldn’t hinder the man for too long. 

Still...the man’s influence stretched far. Knowing his luck, Alex knows it’s only a matter of time before something happens (namely, MI6) and they’d meet again. He can only hope that Dr. Three was in a merciful mood that day, or at least in a mood to negotiate long enough for Alex to escape. 

** Malagasto has been moved from Malagasto Island to an unknown location. A list of current operatives, teachers, and other resources is unavailable. There are a few locations where relocation is possible, including Northern Canada, Africa, Central Asia, Russia, and South America. Authorities in these locations were unable to confirm any suspicious activities. However, the existence of a school similar to Malagasto is very likely. SCORPIA operatives, most of which have never been confirmed concerning the operation beforehand, have now emerged in all six hospitable continents (see “Berlin Shootings,”” Shang Hai Assassination,” and “Mumbai Drug Bust”). One operative under questioning admitted to belonging to SCORPIA but died before they could elaborate further. It’s suspected they were killed with Thallium.  **

_ Sounds like SCORPIA,  _ Alex thinks, flipping the page. Willing to go to extremes to shut their own up. Not that he blames them, as disturbing as it may be to admit. It just made the most logical sense. 

** Furthermore, a leaked SCORPIA file admits to the existence of plans to build a new “Malagasto” though it does not state where, when, and how. The file also includes information on previous SCORPIA operatives.  **

Ah. So that’s where they’d gotten the information from. It wasn’t just the word of the mole that had given them this information. Not the most reliable source, because files could be tampered with, but...still better than nothing. Not that he’d ever tell Mrs. Jones. 

** Among these are the children of previous elite operatives. Judging by the information provided and recent events, the files are from 2 or 3 years ago. **

That explains why the kids look so young. Wide-eyed innocence paired with a hidden brutality was a strange combination, and yet, they managed to pull it off. It was almost like looking at a picture of his class roster. Almost. 

** The authenticity of these files can be disputed. However, cross-references with various other sources (see “List of Sources”) seems to indicate that the information is relatively accurate. The identity of the mole who leaked these files remains unknown. **

** <Page 15> **

** The original files as leaked are found on the following pages. Below is the compiled information on the operatives (see “List of Sources” for more details).  **

It’s weird to see the last names of terrorists so...casually and attached to the ends of people that are their  _ children.  _ Some of them have interesting choices in names; Nile, for one, had named his two children “Leo” and “Leona.” Yassen (he feels a funny twinge at the mention of the name) has a daughter named  _ Jamuti,  _ which sounds distinctly Indian. Maybe he hadn’t been the one to name her. 

He scans down the list further and has to take a break before he bursts into hysterical giggles. Dr. Three? Really? And Yermalov? He can’t imagine them leading a domestic life (then again, neither had Ian). 

There are no photos for either of their children. Yermalov’s don’t even have a  _ name,  _ though the fact that they’re included indicates that they do in fact, exist. Dr. Three, judging by the codename “Tigress”, has a daughter. 

Admittedly, his attention lingers a little longer on Jamuti. Or rather, Carinatus, as the file states. A type of snake, if he remembers correctly. Interesting choice for a codename. If what Jones said was true, then they really had captured the daughter of Yassen Gregorovich. Yassen had never mentioned her before, but...it wasn’t as if it were something he’d likely bring up in the few limited interactions they’d had. The man didn’t exactly strike him as the sentimental type, or even loving, but he remembers how Mrs. Jones had said that their relationship wasn’t distant (how she can say that with confidence is not something he wants to know). Anyway, the only way she’d let him take home this file was if it were the “sanitized” version of events, so if she knows anything else, it was probably something that would “upset” him or get him to change his mind. 

He glances at the clock. It’s close to midnight now. The essay was definitely not getting done tonight. Stretching, he places the file back into his drawer. There wasn’t much left of it to read, and besides, he was tired and there was school tomorrow, as mundane as that may be. 

Mrs. Jones probably expected the file back eventually, along with an answer. He ignores the tinge of annoyance at the fact that she’d once again, managed to lure him in using his curiosity. There was no denying it anymore. He’d tried ignoring it the first time she’d brought it up in her office but now it was getting harder to try and forget that this even existed. How could anyone sleep with the thought that terrorist children were running around? 

Maybe if he slept it on tonight, he could get back to her tomorrow morning. Clarity was just what he needed. A rational part of his brain knows that there was no reason for him to even get involved with this in the first place. A lot of the SCORPIA board had fallen months ago and the fact that none of their children had come to kill him was something to be positive about. 

And yet...he hesitates. It wouldn’t  _ hurt  _ to see Jamuti. If he asked Mrs. Jones or played his cards correctly, there would be no reason for her to even suspect that he was Alex Rider. He’d get his answers and leave. She would stay locked up and with no communication to the outside world, would not be able to exact revenge on him as much as she might want to. 

It’s riskingly optimistic, even for him, but he’s willing to at least try. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (September 2nd, 2020) I know, I know, I'm a horrible person for not posting sooner. This chapter took way too long to write and edit. Like, I don't know why I was struggling through it so much. In a bout of spontaneous productivity, I finally managed to get this whole thing wrapped and edited, though I'm still not entirely happy with the way it turned out. Oh well. I'll be posting the third chapter soon to make up for it. 
> 
> I'm currently watching Avatar and oh my Gods, that show is so good. I can't believe I've never watched that show before. Azula is _obviously _my favorite.__
> 
> _  
> _Thanks to @melonnnnnn, @MissingInActionSince06, @qwerkywriter, @Liz01 who left wonderful supportive comments on the first chapter, as well as all the other users and guests who left kudos! I really appreciate the encouragement guys. :) :) :) :)_  
> _


	3. Baby Snakes

Jamuti hopes Andrayus realizes she’s been compromised when she doesn’t show like planned in Anegada. 

Instead, she’s taken back to the airport, escorted by the same men through security. Not many people can see her, which most likely has to do with the fact that the six men have quite literally, made a human shield around her. 

She considers running now. Unfortunately, her hands are still cuffed and where would she even go? It had been a bad idea coming here. With SCORPIA’s help, she might have been able to go about undetected, but now that SCORPIA had officially placed a “terminate on sight” order for her, she couldn’t exactly expect them to bust her out. She keeps her eyes open for them, tensing if anyone walked too close to her human shield or someone paused to linger a little too long. 

Finally, they stop. She hears voices, speaking to each other. Through the array of bodies, she can see a man in a suit, speaking to one of the men. Their eyes meet and she sees the way his mouth tightens, his face taking on a harder edge than before. 

The human shield around her thins, falling back behind her. In front of her is the man. Mid-thirties, if she had to guess, with a clean-shaven face that betrays no discernible emotion, though his mouth is pursued in a way that suggests he isn’t exactly thrilled to be seeing her. 

“This is the girl?” He asks. His voice is thick with a British accent. 

One of the men snatches her sunglasses and scarf, and another pushes her hair out of the way. Their fingers skim her neck, and she bristles, not only at the touch but what it reveals. 

She sees the man’s eyes snap to the black ink pooled on her skin, shiny and somehow as ugly looking and malicious as it’s real-life counterpoint. The deathstalker scorpion, black and curled against the side of her neck, poised and looking ready to leap at whoever looks at it. Not exactly something she wanted on her skin, much less so permanently.

Of course, that’s the point. The mark of a traitor is never meant to be erased. 

“His daughter,” the man says, looking up, not at her, but at the other men for confirmation. Tamping down her irritation, she settles on a sigh instead. They ignore it. “Doesn’t look much like him.” 

“This was the physical description provided to us, sir,” one of them says. 

“Hmm. Well, we can always do testing for further confirmation. Well done, boys. You got her.” 

She feels tendrils of distaste for them curling around in her head. What physical description? As far as she knows, she’d never been so important that casual guards and security officers at an airport would be able to identify her. How had they gotten the physical description in the first place? And who had provided it? 

It wasn’t like she even looked like her usual self. Her hair had never been this long or unruly before, and the clothes she was wearing disguised much of her features. For them to have been able to target her like this, they would have needed recent intel. Maybe as recently as a week. 

SCORPIA. Would they sell her out like this? Risk custody with another agency in return for her capture? 

It’s possible, but she can’t dwell on it for too long. She can’t afford to. She could get answers later. 

Right now, she needed to get away. 

Keeping her movements small, controlled, and careful, she works a bobby pin out from underneath her sleeve. Her fingers work to find the keyhole of the cuffs. 

She stiffens as one of the men gives her a clap on the back, pushing her forward. She nearly drops the pin. 

“On you go, then.” 

She conceals the pin as best as she can in the flat of her palm, face twisting in a sneer. Make them think that she’s some stupid, petulant child. She forces herself to slouch, hunching over herself, movements becoming lethargic and almost dragging. The man doesn’t roll his eyes, but it feels that way as he grabs her and drags her forward by the shoulder. 

She contents herself by allowing him to escort her through a series of corridors. This part of the airport is more private. Besides the occasional security guard (always with a gun), they were relatively unbothered. Definitely MI5 or MI6 influence, then. 

Once they’re on the plane, the man takes the handcuffs off for a brief moment. Now’s the time she considers smashing her hand into his nose. The move would blind him for a moment, but if she followed up with a jab to the neck, she might be able to knock him out. 

Then again, the chance of escaping from the plane with armed guards outside wasn't too good. A wasted opportunity and she’d have to be an idiot to try and escape from the Islands when they were looking for her. 

“Were you close to your father?” He asks, buckling himself in. He’s not even looking at her, more focused on typing something into his phone. A seat separates them, and the positioning of her hands makes it so that she can’t twist around to face him or see him properly. She can’t tell if it’s a genuine question or just a way of disguising information extraction as “small talk.” 

She doesn’t respond to the question, turning herself the best she can towards the windows. Smalltalk had never appealed to her. Besides, Yassen had never been the greatest fan of British agents. 

Admittedly, she hadn’t seen the reasoning behind it. Not initially. Yassen was not the greatest fan of anything, so his annoyance, she supposes, would be expected. And it was true; British agents always seemed to be meddling in everyone’s business. It would be difficult to name any  _ one _ terrorist organization or intelligence agency that didn’t grudge them. 

Of course, it had all made sense after Air Force One. By then, it was too late. She feels a stab of something sharp in her chest as she stares out the window. It would have been nice to get answers from the source itself (namely, Yassen), but since she couldn’t do that, she’d have to settle for the next best thing. 

She’d done some digging in some old files, and in the process, found out way more than she wanted or even needed to, but that just came with the territory of reading those. There was a saying at Malagasto, something about cans of worms and not opening them up if you couldn’t handle the possibility that there might be an eel inside instead. It had never made sense to her before, but now it does. 

Out of respect for Yassen, she hadn’t snooped around too much in his file. Not more than she needed to, at least. All it had taken was one name for her to divert her attention towards someone else. 

She’d almost been surprised to find Alex Rider’s file in the archives, considering the fact that they’d tried to burn out everything else about him. Saying the Rider name at Malagasto before had always been something that everyone hated, but after he’d come to Malagasto and proved that he could betray them a second time...it wasn’t exactly a surprise why the Board with sudden, clinical viciousness, had sought to erase him from their records. It was best not to even have any evidence that they’d associated with him. Their reputation had taken a substantial hit as it was. 

What surprised her more was how often Alex’s name had come up in Yassen’s file. The Rider name, in general, popped up a lot across Yassen’s file. John’s is the most, Ian’s the least, with Alex snugly in the middle. Alex’s name was mentioned five times less than hers, but John’s was mentioned two times  _ more _ . 

Even thinking about it now makes a stab of jealousy nestle deep inside her stomach. Yassen had never talked about the Riders much and any mention of the name would result in a swift change of conversation. Sometimes, when she’d find herself on her knees on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, late at night, as she resisted the urge to throw up, she’d let her mind wander and speculate. What exactly had Yassen seen in John that he hadn’t seen in anyone else? Why the sheer amount of devotion? It was true that John had been a mentor to Yassen, but that didn’t necessarily explain much. She had teachers and mentors too, and she wasn’t indebted to any of them in the way that Yassen had been. It would have been easy to read his files and find the answers, but she’d refrained. Knowing her, she wasn’t the kind of person who would be able to handle it if this can of worms turned out to be full of eels. 

She had no such qualms with Alex Rider. She’d read everything in his file. He was slightly older than her (she was a late birthday so he would be around fifteen years old now even when she was still fourteen). He had a blackbelt in karate and he also knew how to ski and scuba dive. His time at Malagasto had proved him to be good with a gun (not exceptional by any means, but a natural, as Gordon Ross had noted, and with enough practice, he could easily become better). 

Everyone at SCORPIA knew the name, but that was out of sheer notoriety more than anything else, and ever since he’d come to Malagasto and then proceeded to screw Julia Rothman, of all people over, it was all anyone could talk about. Granted, it was usually behind closed doors, always out of earshot of the board and not exactly positive; at the age of fourteen, he’d single-handedly managed to outsmart SCORPIA, the Board, and it’s Malagasto graduates, all in one. There was a lot of anger and resentment from everyone, and a lot of it was directed at her. After all, whose father was it that had given Alex the brilliant idea to go to SCORPIA in the first place? She’d never even met him while he was there, which was probably for the better. She didn’t need to be accused of treason twice. 

Alex Rider was good, certainly, as much as she might hate to admit it. Taking down much of SCORPIA’s hold in Europe wasn’t an easy feat and not something the Board would easily allow. Europe and the Middle East had been the most profitable centers of business for them. With one of them down, they’d had to shift centers more towards Asia. 

Of course, in the end, he’d been an expendable asset. His housekeeper had died, and he’d faced severe mental issues afterward. MI6 had carted him off to America to live with some friends, and from what she’d heard, he wasn’t exactly doing a splendid job fitting in. 

It was sad, really. He’d fit in better with a group of aspiring terrorists than with the same civilians he’d grown up his entire life around. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, Jamuti sees the man put his phone away. “I’m assuming you weren’t here for a holiday.” 

Were all British agents this chatty or had she simply been cursed with the worst luck in the world? 

She again chooses not to answer him. Instead, she kicks out her feet, giving the seat in front of her a firm kick. She sees the man’s eyebrows twitch. She turns to look him in the eye for a moment as she slouches further in her seat, giving the seat a few more good kicks. Her boots are lined with a sturdy bottom, which was originally intended for when she kicked. More of a likely chance to give someone a nasty concussion or something more permanent which they couldn’t wake up from. It didn’t hurt matters much to say that it also took a lot of the impact off. Less broken bones, less time spent limping around cursing her own stupidity. 

And it certainly didn’t hurt to say that it grated on people’s nerves. She’d spent several weeks doing this to Yassen, and saying the man had regretted his decision to get her the shoes was an understatement. The seat jostles forwards, and back, even as the man’s jaw tightens minutely. She wonders if he has any young children. 

She can’t muster much sympathy for his situation; in fact, she takes vicious glee in knowing that if she kept this up, she’d most likely end up damaging the seat for good. With all the charges of murder and terrorism that were likely going to be leveled against her, damaging government property hardly seemed to be much of a concern. 

“Will you...not do that?” The man sucks in a breath as something snaps. “That’s expensive.” 

“I’m aware,” she responds, giving another firm kick. 

“Please stop or I’ll be forced to restrain your legs.” 

Jamuti wonders how he’ll do that, considering she could always kick him in the head if he tried. Giving the seat one last firm kick, one that sends the entire thing squeaking in a way that suggests she’s broken a few springs, if not the entire thing, she finally lowers her legs. 

“Thank you,” the man says, sounding absurdly relieved even if he seemed to have to force the words out through gritted teeth. 

*

Her eyes blink open as the plane touches down. With a few jolts and bumps, she feels them speed up briefly before coming to a stop. 

The man next to her was texting on a phone. He may be an MI6 agent, or he might just be someone important, like the head of security. Either way, it makes little difference to her. 

She yawns, sitting up a little further. She must have fallen asleep on the flight somehow without knowing. It was well worth it; she feels a little better, more relaxed, and with more focus. Her hands have cramped, and she wiggles them now, trying to stretch them out. Something sharp bites into the skin of her palm. The pin. She hadn’t dropped it. 

She glances over at the man. No doubt he’d release her cuffs without her having to do it. There would be little point in her doing it. Even if she got them off, she still had to make it off the plane. 

“Good nap?” The man asks. 

“Excellent.” She glances out the window. “Are you with MI6?” 

“That’s classified.” 

Jamuti resists the urge to roll her eyes. She understood the importance of keeping up appearances for appearances' sake, but the secrecy wasn’t really all too necessary. She’d already suspected it to be MI6 from the moment she’d been apprehended. It was one of the many things Yassen had expected her to know and memorize. Any city or country in the world, and there was a good chance that she would know details about local law enforcement, as well as more international agencies. It had been a more annoying part of the work he expected her to do, but not any less helpful, now that it was actually being put to use. 

He uncuffs her when two more men arrive onto the plane. She sees the guns strapped to their belts, along with a set of tasers. She tilts her head. Surely, they wouldn’t shoot a child, even if said child was technically a terrorist? People usually were reluctant to. 

“Up,” one of them commands to her. She stands, and they grab her and pull her into the aisle of the cabin. The other man cuffs her, seeming to not notice the pin she has tucked between her fingers. The man who’d originally brought her here nods to the other two, and they begin walking. 

They get off the plane. This must be some kind of private airstrip, not like the one at Beef Island. The walls are pale grey and the floor is covered in a thin layer of brown rug, flat and with spaces of blue and white tile at ten-foot intervals where one rug ended and another one began. Besides, Heathrow Airport has never been this quiet and still, and when a band of military officers march past them with little more than a cursory glance at her, Jamuti’s guesses are confirmed. It makes sense; a terrorist walking among civilians was generally what countries tried to avoid, and attracting the attention of other people wasn’t something that was encouraged. 

A phone rings. 

“Keep walking,” the man, agent, whoever he was, says to her. She watches as he answers the call, moving a little off to the side for the illusion of privacy. The two other men wrench her forward, rendering it near impossible for her to turn her head to see his facial reactions. There was a good chance it was about her, but seeing as they’d garnered no new information from her, it was most likely just an update. She wonders if he’ll tell them about the damage to the plane seat. 

The two security men keep their grip on her arms as they move her through the place. Further down, she sees that the corridor’s straight path ends and turns sharply to the left. The floor underneath her feet becomes thick carpeting all the way around and behind them, the footsteps of the military men fade further and further away, until they’re gone.

She counts to five and then shifts the pin so it’s in the grip of her fingers. 

The lock on her hands is facing her, an unfortunate or maybe careless mistake on their part. Maybe they didn’t think she’d get access to a pin, or maybe they simply didn’t think she’d be able to get the cuffs open. 

“Keep walking,” one of them gives her a firm shove on the back, and she nearly loses it. Resisting the urge to snap in irritation, Jamuti finally manages to slide it in, searching for leeway. 

Something registers, familiar from all those classes and training exercises at Malagasto. She feels a brief surge of triumph as the cuffs loosen marginally and she twists and pulls. Her hands pull apart and the cuffs slip. Fast. Too fast. She tries to grab them, but it’s too late. They fall onto the floor with a loud clatter. 

_ Blyad.  _

Jamuti freezes. Their heads snap towards her, and the man with the phone tilts it away from his ear as if in disbelief. 

For a moment, no one does anything. Someone on the other end of the phone is saying something which she can hear, very faintly, but it’s drowned out by the ruffling and drawing of a gun. 

Two guns, actually. As luck would have it, one of them fires at her, while the other hesitates. 

The shot is clearly meant to incapacitate her, not kill, so she twists to the side easily. It slams into the floor instead. The other man seems unsure, and she uses that opportunity to lunge at him, twisting the arm with the gun off to the side, none too gently. 

Her eyes zone in on the man who’d brought her here even as he starts to speak into the phone. Calling for backup, in a military airport. She doesn’t like what it means to her. Throwing the other man, seemingly whimpering in pain, to the ground, she doesn’t bother wasting time trying to wrench the gun out of his hands. Instead, she pivots, smashing her foot into the man with the phone’s chest. A cry rushes out of his mouth, the device in his hand clattering to the ground uselessly. Briefly, she pauses to smash it with her foot, watching the black screen become spiderwebbed with cracks. The man makes a noise of protest, and her attention turns back towards him even as he half gets up, trying to get away from her. She launches herself at him, ignoring his surprised cry as they stumble. He tries to get up again, but she twists him around, jabbing an elbow into the side of his stomach. He doubles over, and at that moment, she snaps his neck. 

There’s no time to wait. She turns to the remaining man, the one who’d originally fired at her. He’s aiming again. She ducks and the shot goes over her head. Considering the relatively close distance, and the fact that he’s much taller and heavier than her, with a good amount of what looks like muscle around his neck, a neck strike was ineffective. She doesn’t have the momentum or distance to prepare a kick either. 

In her moment of indecision, he lunges at her. Jamuti steps back, evading, even as his hands close around her shoulders. Curling her fingers, she jabs them into the underside of his jaw, at the juncture of his neck and jaw bone. The move forces his head back, and he lets go of her shoulders, ducking as he stumbles back. With a little more space and momentum now, she finishes with a kick to the head. 

He doesn’t get back up after that. 

The only man left now chooses this moment to try and stand up. By the way he’s clutching his arm, she thinks it might only be a mild sprain or a torn muscle. 

No matter. She reaches down, plucking the gun that was now on the floor. Clicking the safety off, she aims. 

The man twists to the side just as she fires. The shot hits him in the neck. Blood spurts from the wound and he gasps, seeming to gag. 

_ Chertovski zdorovo.  _ If only he hadn’t moved-

She rubs her head, wondering if she should put the man out of his misery or tell him to put his hands around his neck to stop the bleeding. 

The sound of approaching footsteps makes the decision for her. Quickly, she fires, once, this time getting him in the head. By that point, it was the least painful option. 

Pausing, Jamuti grabs both the guns, leaving the tasers. The first of approaching security comes around the corner, shouting at her. Still far away but...not what she needs right now. Quickly, she darts around the corner of the corridor, this one, thankfully, being empty as far as her eye can see. The move would net her some time. 

She checks each of the guns. Both are Glock 17 Pistols. The standard Glock 17 would hold 17 rounds, but there was always the off-chance that this was something tailored more for the use of law enforcement or whatever specialized military they’d belonged to. Ten, she decides. She has ten in each of the guns. It should be more than enough. 

Jamuti breaks into a sprint, taking off down the corridor. She realizes that what she had once thought to be a relatively straight hallway actually curves slightly to the left. By that point, it’s too late. 

She sees a desk, and at the desk, a security official with a cup of something. A computer monitor sits in front of her. Security footage? No. If it had been, she’d have already called for backup, not made herself some breakfast. 

Their eyes lock for the briefest moment before the security official fumbles with her gun.

Jamuti is faster, hitting her straight in the head. 

She doesn’t stop after that. 

~:~

“Requesting backup-” 

“We have a violent, armed attacker progressing through the Eastern block of the airport-” 

“No hostages-” 

Mrs. Jones listens to the radio reports with no outwardly expressed emotion. Next to her, Aasha leans against the desk, red lips pursed in a way that conveys her clear displeasure. 

“Security camera footage shows she’s progressing towards the exits. Fucking hell, can someone get me on the phone with the Head of Security-” 

“Head of Security is most likely dead, sir,” 

More swearing. “Jesus fucking Christ, can someone grab the fucking child?” 

“Armed, sir. Two guns.” 

“How did she get the guns in the first place?” Aasha mutters. “You can’t expect me to believe that she actually disarmed two armed guards and then killed another man in an attempt to escape.” 

Mrs. Jones says nothing. The development was...certainly interesting. Off to her side, on her computer monitor, she’s able to monitor the progress of the girl via camera footage. The few times she can, the girl pauses to shoot out the cameras, but for the most part, she seems more focused on getting out then doing so discreetly. 

Agent Rider and her would certainly make an...interesting pair. Neither seemed too concerned with being quiet, though she can hardly fault them for it when they were being so effective about it. 

The only fault she’d pick with the girl was the amount of expensive equipment she was damaging. Generally, Alex did it to other countries or to criminals who had that kind of bulging budget. Hauling a known terrorist and assassin through a private military airstrip hadn’t been the smartest idea, especially amid recent budget cuts. Incidents like these were certainly not going to look good for her next meeting with their financial advisors. 

Shaking her head slightly, she pops a peppermint in her mouth even as loud gunfire erupts over the radio. On the monitor, Jamuti does a one-eighty and runs in the other direction. The security teams had finally managed to get ahead of her, and now she seemed to be looking for another way past them. Mrs. Jones knows for a fact that she won’t find anything. Behind her, a security team approaches her with guns drawn while in front of her, another two guards approach with guns drawn. Even if she manages to fire at some of them, she’d essentially be gambling that the others wouldn’t hit her. 

In a few minutes, she would surrender. Hopefully make all that damage to the equipment worth it. 

Aasha leans forward suddenly, eyes fixed on the monitor. “What is she doing?” 

On the monitor, Jamuti is backing up, towards the windows. The two security teams surround her. In total, six people now have guns pointed at her. Jamuti raises both guns, seeming to size them up. 

“A shootout,” Mrs. Jones says. She doesn’t react to the scoff the other woman gives. Instead, she turns her attention towards the radio. 

“Put the guns on the ground and raise your arms above your head!” 

Jamuti makes no move to do any of that. Instead, she turns one of the guns towards the security man attempting to creep in from the right. One of her hand inches on the trigger. 

“I thought we wanted her alive.” 

“Well, we do. She’s the one who’s challenging them right now.” Mrs. Jones presses a button on the radio. “This is ‘6. We need her alive. Do not shoot.”

“She’s making demands, ma’am,” 

“What?” 

Sure enough, on the screen, her mouth appears to be moving. 

“She can’t possibly expect-” Aasha starts tensely before Mrs. Jones holds up a hand that cuts her off. 

“What kind of demands?” 

“She’s not saying.” 

“Do we have darts of some kind?” Aasha butts in. “Tranqs or maybe sedatives?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Then use them.” 

Mrs. Jones sighs. Sometimes, Aasha was a little too overeager. “If the darts are there with you, you should have used them already. Regardless if she has a gun or not, we need her alive and in good condition.” 

“Right away, ma’am.” 

A series of hand signals later and one of the guards on the far left slowly starts to reach for something. On her right, the guard shifts again, getting closer. Jamuti’s attention flickers towards it, but the distraction is enough for the guard on the left to finally pull out a dart gun. 

The girl turns towards the movement. She moves, back pressing up against the bulletproof floor to ceiling glass, but not quite enough. A dart embeds itself in the side of her thigh. 

“Target was hit, ma’am.” 

“Excellent.” 

Jamuti takes a step forward, then staggers. Immediately, the guards rush forward, grabbing the guns from her hands. After a few weak attempts to brush them off, the full effects of the dart kick in and she seems to slump in their arms. 

“Condition?” 

“She has a pulse, ma’am,” 

“Excellent.”

~:~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (September 7th, 2020) My school is going to be starting up soon, but thankfully, I have a lot of chapters prewritten, so it's really just a bunch of editing that needs to be done before I post anything. 
> 
> Thanks to @ShadowBird and @MissingInActionSince06 for their wonderfully supportive comments! To answer any general questions people may have: yes, we will likely see a few fights to the death between the Malagasto kids and Alex. So we have that to look forward to! 😁 
> 
> Also thanks to the guest who left a review on Fanfiction.net. I appreciate the support! 💖
> 
> My posting schedule from here on out is likely to be a chapter every Monday and Friday, and I'll usually try and let you guys know if for some reason, I'm not able to post. Also if there are any character birthdays, such as Alex's, which, this year, will be falling on a Saturday, I'll post an extra chapter in celebration :) 
> 
> See all of you on Friday! 💖 :)


	4. Islands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (September 11th, 2020) I know today is 9/11, a historical day in America when the Twin Towers fell and many people lost their lives. To those of who survived, I just want to say that your bravery and courage in the face of adversity is admirable. To those of who were first responders/doctors/fire-fighters during 9/11, thank you for your service and all you did to help the community.

On the island of Patroklos, Andrayus Rothman reads something from his phone with pursed lips, attention only drifting occasionally towards the glass of soumada in his hand. He’s not alone; there’s one man, dressed in a loose white shirt and khaki shorts, Andrayus’s personal waitstaff while he’s on the island. He’s standing off to the side, head politely bowed. Most of the staff knew better than to look at things they shouldn’t be looking at, or to interfere in matters that, really, were none of their business. The few that didn’t never had a chance to learn. They’d be shot and disposed of. If they had guests, they might even be made an example of, for entertainment and a warning to the offer staff of what could happen if they decided to get a little too ambitious for their own good. 

Granted, such luxury came at a price. Patroklos cost a fortune to maintain and run, as most of the staff lived here year-round, maintaining the place in case Andrayus decided to drop by between meetings. Luckily, his departed mother had paid off most of the debts that came with it and it was now his to do as he wished. 

Normally, he’d enjoy the scenic views that came with it. Some of his fondest memories came from staying at Patroklos, drinking soumada (or even sometimes the occasional sips of ouzo if his mother was in a good mood that day, which wasn’t very often), swimming, and exploring. After being at Malagasto for so long, putting on a public face for the sake of maintaining professional relationships, and gaining the good graces of the other operatives, it was refreshing for him to have a place, all to himself. 

Of course, that was before. 

Now, all he feels is annoyed. From where he’s sitting on the terrace, he has an open and full view of the ocean, stretching out on all sides of them, but the water is irritatingly too bright, making his head hurt. The air stings his eyes when it whips past him, and there’s something off with his drink. The sun, which normally gives him a nice tan, was now something to be irritated over for no reason other than the fact that it was a reminder of his mother. She’d hated it when he came back tanned and with sunburns across his shoulders. 

Does he miss her? He’s not sure. She was always nagging him about something or the other, but he supposes she had cared in her own way, even if “her way” entailed criticizing everything he did. 

If she were here now, she no doubt would say something about his face. Yes, he’s angry. No, he doesn’t care if the waitstaff saw it. The whole world could feel his wrath right now for all he cared because the world couldn’t do anything about it if they tried. 

His anger came from three things. The first being long-suffering and dull, with the New Board and their chain of command. That he couldn’t do much about. He preferred to keep his hands clean from murder when he could, and it was only a matter of time before someone took care of the New Board themselves. 

The second problem was that his mother was dead. This problem, too, was something he couldn't do much about, but he could certainly complain about it. Ironically enough, if his mother was still alive, she’d tell him to stop his moping. Her favorite saying had been “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” and it was something she’d always snapped at him when he would come to her upset over some problem or another. Of course, it didn’t mean that she didn’t take care of it-she certainly would get rid of whatever nasty annoyance it was this time, no matter how big or small it was. 

The thought brings a twitch of a smile to his face. 

Now for his third problem. This one was the one he was currently thinking about, and it was one he could easily rectify if the person in question hadn’t messed it up. He glances down at his phone screen, at the phone number that had last sent a text to him over a day ago. 

It had been notoriously difficult getting in contact with Jamuti after she’d run, considering that she didn’t want to be found, but it hadn’t taken too long to convince her that he was on her side. He’s not sure why he’d agreed to help her out. It was certainly expensive, and he’d had to go behind the backs of the New Board, but he can’t bring it in himself to care too much. The New Board would thank him for this later. They’d never admit it now, but they’d be thanking him for it later. 

The plan had been simple. Jamuti was in South America, on the run, and Andrayus, coincidentally enough, was nearby on the British Virgin Islands. His mother had property there as well, and ever since her death, he hadn’t done much except take a vacation around to all of her estates. 

The New Board knew this. With limited resources as it was, they had also stopped sending someone after him to monitor where he was. It didn’t hurt matters that he was mostly using his mother’s private bank to pay for everything, rather than SCORPIA’s. Occasionally, they’d check in on him, but other than that, he had much more freedom than some of the others did. 

He got in touch with Jamuti, and they’d made plans to meet up in Anegada, near one of his mother’s property. 

If the plan had gone accordingly, they would have then boarded a private jet back to Patroklos, and he’d have contacted SCORPIA. No doubt, they would be unhappy about it, but that would be easy to talk over. 

The day had come. Jamuti was supposed to be in Anegada by noon, at the latest. He’d waited until three, and then he’d gotten back into his jet and left the island, alone. The staff on the plane, like the staff on Patroklos, were wise enough to not deny his request of glasses after glasses of champagne. They were also wise enough to not say anything when he smashed each glass in turn underneath his foot. It was lucky that he was wearing his good dress shoes and not sandals. 

It wasn’t fair. If all had gone to plan, he wouldn’t have had to get drunk. They were supposed to meet the New Board today. Instead, she’d gone and gotten herself captured by British agents. MI6, of all things. 

His nostrils flare and his grip on his glass tightens enough that the tips of his fingers turn white. It hadn’t been the best of ideas to meet in Anegada, considering that, yes, it was British territory, but he hadn’t  _ actually  _ expected her to get captured. Carelessness was what had done it. He’d checked the security footage later and had actually been furious to discover that the reason she had been captured was because of the stupid tattoo. 

_ You’ve done it now, mother,  _ he thinks, putting down his phone with more viciousness than was good for the glass table he’s sitting at. She was still meddling in his life even from beyond the grave. Wonderful. 

And the worst part was that the New Board probably knew about this. They’d question him about it for sure. Why he had been in the same place as her. Why he had left after she had. Why she’d run. 

Andrayus picks up the glass, then holds it out. As if on a puppet string, the man moves forward smoothly and refills it. He watches the slightly milky liquid rise for a moment before he jerks his head, and the man moves back. Out of sight, out of mind. 

If only the same thing could be said about his current problems. 

His mother would have passed this off as a lost cause. Jamuti was certainly good, but there were others with more experience. More power. Better. 

But they were all old now and the New Board didn’t like that. They wanted fresh talent. It was no secret that they were doing their fair share of “cleaning up,” which involved getting rid of the operatives they deemed problematic or “no longer best suited” to their interests. 

Jamuti has potential. And it wasn’t like the New Board was doing any better at getting someone who could match that level of skill. SCORPIA’s reputation had been permanently dragged through the mud. Contractors were reluctant to trust them and they’d already had three betrayals in the past six months leading to major financial losses and a new security upgrade. Keeping someone like the daughter of Yassen Gregorovich, who had been proven, tested, and sure, would likely reassure some of their clients. They didn’t even need to mention the whole betrayal thing. 

He’d read her evaluation reports. She had a chance to become a promising investment, just like her father. At this age, she could easily take on contracts that newer adult operatives struggled with. The New Board also hadn’t chosen to get rid of her immediately, last he’d checked, so they might feel the same way as him.

Retrieving her shouldn’t be too hard. The British were notoriously horrible at keeping people captive. That medal went to the Americans. The secret was to keep your prisoners of war in  _ other  _ countries, rather than bringing them back.

He sips at his drink, making a decision at last. Standing up, he heads back into the cool darkness of the building. After a moment, the man follows behind him. The glass would be taken away later. 

Jamuti wasn’t a lost cause. The New Board would have no choice but to agree with him after he presented all of her evaluations, training, and reports. He picks up the telephone, dialing a number so familiar that he barely glances at the keypad when he taps it in. He doesn’t bother thinking that someone will pick up; instead, he patiently waits for the beep of the message machine. He leaves a two-minute message, then turns back to the man, who’s lingering in close enough proximity to answer to him, but not close enough to hear what he’d said. 

“ _ Get my jet ready,”  _ he says, in accented but otherwise flawless Greek.  _ “Quickly.”  _

The man nods, bowing his head politely, then leaves, striding away to convey the command to the air staff. 

The New Board might hate it, but she’d come back to them. 

One way or another. 

~:~

Daniel Smith examines the photo, noting every detail about the teen, from the dark eyes, blonde hair, and smile that looks so much like John’s that it makes him grit his teeth. Besides him, Inna raises her eyebrows but doesn’t comment. 

“So the little brat became a spy. Just like his father.” 

“I’m assuming,” Inna responds, voice perfectly neutral and polite. Even out of the corner of his eyes, he can see the relaxed stance she’s assumed, Parade Rest, he believes. She’d been ex-military before she joined SCORPIA, and it showed in the graceful way she held herself, back straight, neck straight, facing forward. 

“How old do you think he is now?” 

She examines the photo, the movement of looking little more than a shift of her eyes slightly downwards. “Looks sixteen, maybe.” 

“No, no, no, that’s not right. John died in...2001? That’d make him fifteen now. So they got him when he was fourteen. MI6. Good for them. Recruit them while they’re young, isn’t it?” 

Inna doesn’t respond to this, though she hasn’t left like she usually does when he’s in one of his “rages.” Out of the three Noor sisters, she was the one willing to put up the most with him. He wasn’t oblivious to the other two’s eye rolls and comments in Hebrew or Arabic, but he can’t bring himself to care either way, with Inna by his side. Being the eldest, she had some control over the other two, and if that wasn’t enough, she’d finally agreed to sleep with him after weeks of one-sided flirting on his part. She had made it explicitly care that things between them weren’t “exclusive” and always made sure to maintain a polite distance between them. 

He growls, frustrated. It didn’t help matters that she was wearing a thin slip of a camisole and loose flowing black pants. 

Maybe Inna sees the way he’s looking at her because she turns away, smoothly. “What do you suggest we do? We certainly can’t afford to go after the child right now. Finances aren’t where we need them to be, and we need all of our resources pooled into-” 

“The contract, I know, I know,” Daniel snaps. “But if he came into our clutches? What do you think we should do?” 

“Capture him and dispose of him as necessary. Not stretching out our budget, of course.” 

Tactical as always. He’s silent for a moment. “MI6 still sends him for work, no?” 

“I believe so.” 

“And if they just so managed to send him to our operation…” He licks his lips. The thought is a delicious one, though not quite as much as the urge to bite into the soft, warm flesh of Inna’s slender neck. “Yes, this can work.” 

“You’re suggesting we lure him?” 

“It wouldn’t be too hard.” Daniel walks up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulders. “We’re focusing our efforts into infiltrating schools, aren’t we? Who else would they send as a teenage spy to get inside?” 

Inna turns, green eyes glittering in what looks like something close to excitement, through the rest of her face is much more restrained. It’s the most emotion she’s shown all week, except, of course, between the sheets. “And the leaked file. They already know. We wouldn’t have to do much.” 

“Exactly.” 

And just like that, her face falls again into that blank mask as she brushes herself out of his grasp, walking over to the window. Taking a deep breath, he clenches his fists, resisting the urge to go after her. She always did this when he got close. It was as if the idea of more than the barest amount of intimacy revolted her. That, or she was playing hard to get. 

Well, that was going to be difficult to do, considering the fact that they were going to be spending the next few weeks together, overseeing that everything ran smoothly. They were currently on Terra’s Key, off the coast of Miami. It had been Inna’s idea to stay close to the US for the first phase of their operation, with their shipments reaching Tampa Bay later that week, but it was Daniel who was the proud owner of his own island. Not a bad place to be right now, free from jail, about to become rich beyond his wildest dreams, with a beautiful woman by his side.

“Why exactly are you fixated on his child so much? They’re nothing like each other, from what I have observed.” 

Daniel scowls. “They’re both meddlesome idiots.” 

“Perhaps we should avoid him.” 

“You don’t understand. If we do, he’ll somehow manage to ruin one of our future operations. I’ve seen his track record. He’s always getting involved in things he shouldn’t be. If we don’t get rid of him now, we never will.” 

“There is no need to bait him in this way.” Inna glances back at him. “Why not send one of the other children to get rid of him? If they get rid of him, excellent. If they don’t, it’s not worth our time.” 

He doesn’t say anything. He had been hoping she wouldn’t bring that up. The problem was that she was absolutely correct. They didn’t need to risk so much with those children, Malagasto trained and at their mercy, on retainer. The Board had come to the unanimous decision to get rid of most of them, given the fact that they’d turn at a moment’s notice if given the chance. Some of them probably already knew that it was the Board that had gotten most of those kids’ parents arrested. One of them was bound to end of betraying them all eventually. 

The official “execute” order hadn’t been given yet. There was no need to when the operatives themselves were taking care of matters internally. In the past few weeks alone, three of them had ended up with their throats slashed. Five of them had left, and there were fifteen that had officially gone AWOL, either dead or “permanently retired.” There was very little chance for vengeance, too, considering that most of the more powerful operatives were still underneath their thumb. It had been easy to convince them. They wouldn’t get killed, underneath the condition that they maintain loyalty to the New Board. In return, they’d also get their own private sections of SCORPIA to manage. Granted, they’d have to come to the Board for approval on anything, and the amount of freedom that they had was nowhere near what they thought they had. 

In the end, however, the arrangement worked out perfectly for them. Once the lower operatives were gone, they could get rid of the upper operatives too. That wouldn’t leave them any chance for stupid things like someone double-crossing them. 

Not like John had, at least. 

Daniel be much smarter than Julia Rothman and Zelijan Kust and whoever else it was that had allowed such a massive blow to happen, permanently damaging future work prospects for SCORPIA. As soon as that little brat Alex came within proximity of them, he was dead. There’d be nothing left to chance. 

It was just a matter of the right opportunity. Inna might think that they should kill him and get it over with it, but he disagreed. If he was old enough to be a spy for his country than he was old enough to be tortured for information. Who knows what the little snot could yield them? If he did know something, good for SCORPIA. If he didn’t…well, Daniel would still enjoy it tremendously, making him scream. 

For now, he’d humor Inna. Unfortunately for them, the stupid child was unfairly good at avoiding death, even at the hands of SCORPIA. Malagasto or not, it was doubtful the operative would even succeed.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Send one of them.” 

“I’ll send Flecher, then,” she says, pulling out her phone. She’d probably already planned this out beforehand. Manipulated the entire conversation to get him to agree. He can’t bring himself to care too much about it, not with the way her body was arched, leaning against the railing. She really was a distraction. He watches her slender fingers tap away at the screen for a few minutes, and then she turns back towards him. “It’s done.” 

“Do you want to grab some breakfast after this?” 

“I was thinking the same,” she says, smiling slyly and walking closer. The early morning light casts a halo around her, and a gentle breeze makes her black hair fan out slightly around her face. He notices just then she isn’t wearing anything underneath the camisole. 

~:~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (September 11th, 2020) This week's chapter is a bit shorter than usual but gives some background on the New Board, as well as some of the other characters. Unfortunately, school has kept me occupied for the past week, so sorry for the late posting time as well. 
> 
> Thanks to the guest who left a review! I really appreciate the support. :) 
> 
> Also thanks to the people who left kudos and kept supporting this story! 
> 
> As always, please leave kudos/a review telling me what you think. 
> 
> See you all on Monday! Have a great weekend :) :)


	5. Escape The Piranhas...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (November 27th, 2020) This chapter took me way too long to write lol. I did mention earlier I had a bunch of the story written (so far, we’re at 52,000 words and 108 pages) but I had to do some major plot revisions, on account of things starting to not make sense. I’m also going back and editing both the character’s perspectives a bit (despite having done so a hundred other times). I don’t know what it is with me but I’m never happy with the way things turn out. It’s actually very cringy for me to read some of my old writing (which is why I don’t really like reading my old work that much) without making major edits to it. I guarantee you that this chapter is going to end up getting even more edits after I publish it, but I am trying to limit it to minor things like grammar and inconsistency, rather than introduce new plot elements in it. (Full list of changes at the end of the chapter).   
> While I’m at it, I’d like to thank @chulhu_is_chaotic_good for inspiring me to write. I was in a mid-afternoon Friday slump when I decided to check if there were any new fics published and I got to read not one, not two, but three new fic chapters (I was out for a few days, so I didn’t get to read it when they originally published it). So yay for that!   
> I’ll try to update Eleven in the upcoming days as well though I’m feeling a bit uninspired at the moment. With personal issues as well as school, I’ve been unfortunately occupied. I’m in a Creative Writing class this year, so I am getting sufficient practice in terms of writing, but in terms of fanfiction…:/   
> Anyway, let me know what you guys think!

The woman enters the Royal and General a little before 3 o’clock in the afternoon. She’s smartly dressed in a power suit and black flats to match, a businesswoman on her way to the bank before heading home. People passing by her might assume she’s in her mid-forties, and they wouldn’t exactly be wrong. Her actual age, however, underneath the heavy makeup and clothing, is closer to twenty. There’s a gold ring on her left finger, and she’s carrying a glossy black handbag on her right arm. There’s a purpose to her walk, power in each stride that makes people move out of her way quickly. No one wants to get in her way, and it’s for the better that no one does. 

Of course, nothing about her is real. The woman has a driver’s license with her name, “Mara O’Hare” printed on the top, and there are some other identification papers and even records scattered through London verifying that such a person existed, but the real Mara had actually died over a day ago. Her family would notice she was missing sometime tonight; she’d been on a business trip to Sussex and was supposed to be back by this afternoon. The children wouldn’t see their mother at home. They’d think she was caught up in London traffic, but it was really only when Mara’s husband comes home that they’d realize something was wrong. 

By then, it would be too late. Fake Mara would disappear, and the real one would be found in the dumpster behind a bakery not too far from here. 

Her identity passes the test, it seems, since no one sees or questions her as she heads to the reception area, taking a seat on one of the stiff brown sofas. She pulls out her phone, texting someone quickly, before putting it away. Relaxing significantly, though her job isn’t done yet, she allows her attention to be that of casual curiosity and boredom as she surveys the room. Elevators to the right of her, the entrance to the left. Reception behind her, though that’s done on purpose. She’d know if someone was trying to sneak up behind her, and the consequences of that would be lethal. 

A few businessmen, talking amongst themselves, pass by her. Expensive cologne makes her nose wrinkle as she quickly glances over them. No threat of any kind. Her target hasn’t arrived yet, it seems. 

She glances at her watch. Three on the dot. He should be here soon.

*

Alex enters the Royal and General bank at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. 

He steps in through the set of revolving doors, the air conditioning hitting him full force in the face, making his sweaty hair cling to the back of his neck. School had let out early that day, so Tom and a few of the other boys from their Year had decided to organize a “friendly” match of football in the park. 

He should have known better than to trust them on that. Their friendly match had quickly dissolved into horsing around, despite Alex’s weak protests that he had somewhere to be later. Grass in his hair, enough mud on his uniform to make him look like he’d fallen into a pit of mud, and that was just the start of it. He’d gotten enough looks on the Tube and street as it was, but inside the bank, he sticks out almost comically among the drab grey suits and polished shoes. There’d been no time to go home and change, and even if he had the option, he wouldn’t have taken it. There’s something wholly satisfying about seeing them squirm in discomfort. Wonder what someone as young as him was doing at the bank in the middle of the day. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to incriminating the bank. 

He limps to the reception desk. “I’m here to see Mrs. Jones.” 

The brunette receptionist barely bats an eye at his current state of disarray. She’s probably seen worse from some of the field agents who have come limping in through here, and she probably gets paid enough to keep her mouth shut about it, too. 

“I’ll call her right now,” she says, picking up the phone. It rings for a few moments before disconnecting entirely. Alex raises his eyebrows as she frowns, looking a little flustered. It seems that MI6’s lack of punctuality extended far beyond their agents in the field. “That’s odd. She must be busy. Could you please wait for a few minutes?” 

He nods, slowly making his way to the waiting area. Two other people are sitting here, an unassuming businessman with a black, slightly battered briefcase, and then a businesswoman with shortly cropped red hair and a glossy black handbag. The businessman smiles at Alex as he passes by, but then returns to his work on the laptop that’s perched in his lap. The woman ignores him as she continues to type something into her phone. 

Alex sits down stiffly in one of the drab brown armchairs. Jostled by the movement, a piece of grass falls down from his hair and into his eyes. He brushes it away. Wonders if it might have been better to remain standing, then decides against it. The chair looks like it’s on its last stretch anyway, falling apart at the seams, a stain that, upon closer inspection, looks suspiciously like a bloodstain. Or some other bodily fluid, though Alex really doesn’t want to think about  _ that  _ possibility. Only a couple more bodily fluids away from a visit from the Health Department. How ironic it would be to see them get nailed for something like that, rather than the human rights violation they engaged in on a daily basis. Hell, just coming here was one giant human rights violation in itself. 

He pulls out his cellphone, typing off a quick message to Jack. After yesterday, he doesn’t want to worry her any more than he has to. She’d ignored him for the most part in the morning, slamming down his plate of eggs and toast before she’d announced that she was leaving for her classes. He has hope for the evening though. When he comes back home, having returned the file to Mrs. Jones, he’d explain how they’d  _ offered  _ the chance to meet a terrorist to him but he’d rejected it. He’d come to the decision sometime in the early hours of the morning, after a particularly harrowing nightmare, that as much as he might have the urge to get answers, his urge to remain alive and not get into any more trouble was even stronger. He could get answers somewhere else besides the children of terrorists. For now, he just wants to focus on his contract-obtained Nightshade missions and school. 

He doesn’t type all that into the message, though. The bank likely monitored these texts too, and he doesn’t want them to know his motives before he’s had a chance to meet with Mrs. Jones in person and tell her himself. He presses send. As luck would have it, an error message pops up on the screen. He groans. Now was one of the worst times for his mobile data for the phone to be running out on him. He tries calling her next, but there’s no service. Fine. The wifi, then. He’s been here enough times that it should have connected automatically anyway. 

No luck yet again. It doesn’t even show up on the list of networks, so either his phone was acting up, or it was the Bank’s fault. As tempted as he is to believe it’s the latter, the businessman and woman don’t seem to be having any connectivity issues, so it was likely just him. He could ask to borrow Mrs. Jones’s phone or call from the Bank, but those were his last resort options. He isn’t quite that desperate yet. 

He glances at the time again. 3:05. If Mrs. Jones didn’t show up in another five minutes, he’d duck outside and try his luck there. 

He slumps down, stretching out his legs as far as they can go. There aren’t any magazines (not any that interest him, at least), so he’s left to survey the room. Ian would have likely made it into a game. He’d made everything into a game, Alex thinks, watching two people exit the elevators. Going on vacations, eating at restaurants, getting ice cream in foreign countries...all of it had been a game. At the time, they’d been fun, a way for him to bond with the man who he knew felt the slightest bit uncomfortable being tied down with a child. Now, they were just a bitter reminder that his whole life, he’d been trained for this. To be a spy. 

Ian would likely be disappointed in him now. He’s admitted it to himself countless times before. A lot of his earlier missions had been sheer luck and his age, but those wouldn’t last long. Soon, even MI6 would grow tired of him. His fifteenth birthday had just passed by. He had grown three inches since last year. He had gained muscle mass, and he didn’t exactly look like a child anymore. Not like an adult, either, but no one in their right mind would look at him and think,  _ there’s no way he can do anything to stop me.  _ At the very least, they’d have to give him some credit, won’t they? 

Alex doesn’t mind that MI6 might be losing interest in him. It stings a little, yes, but not as much as he’d have thought it would. There are other ways he can help the world, right? Other ways besides being a spy. He’d missed the last Career Day at his school, so he can’t say for sure which career path he was going to take, but so far, he’s veering strongly on the side of something related either to law or science. A lawyer, like Jack, maybe, or an engineer of some kind. He was getting decent scores in math and science despite all the school he’d been missing. One of his teachers had even eluded at a scholarship if he kept up the good work. MI6 giving him up wasn’t the worst thing in the world. 

And yet...a niggling doubt in the back of his mind gives him from fully giving himself up to the idea. Who would be there to save the world when things went wrong in the criminal underworld? A lawyer could prosecute society’s obvious criminals, and defend victims in the same capacity, but they didn’t have that same kind of influence in the criminal underworld. An engineer could change the physical landscape around them, invent new things that would benefit the world, but in the same capacity, they could also be easily exploited into making weapons of destruction. 

At the age of fifteen, Alex Rider, the teenage spy, could change the world more with his ability to say yes to MI6, then Alex Rider, at the age of twenty-five, could change with his bright-eyed dreams of becoming someone who didn’t exist at the beck and call of his masters. It should be an easy decision to make, and yet, it isn’t. 

Five more minutes tick by. He shifts, a bit impatiently, wondering if maybe he should have made an appointment with Mrs. Jones first. He’d never bothered to before, but then again, they did always expect him to come crawling back to them. Perhaps he should have called ahead. He gets up with his cellphone and backpack, ready to go outside and leave a message for Jack. 

At that exact moment, a group of businessmen chooses to exit the elevator, like a swarm of black piranhas (figuratively, of course, though it’s hard to think of them as anything else with their blank expressions, vaguely menacing dead eyes, and propensity to gather in large groups). They’re blocking most of the front entrance of the bank, in addition to holding up the elevators, much to the irritation of the receptionist and the two security guards by the door. One of the security guards has paused them and is demanding an ID check, and it seems that hasn’t sitten well with the group. Alex has to agree. An ID check was practically pointless when they all looked one and the same to him. Dead and only slightly more interesting than their drab surroundings. 

The businesswoman on the sofa gets up, heading to join them, and the businessman joins them a moment later. Like piranhas, it seems that they’re planning on bullying their way out of this situation. Alex rolls his eyes. The phone call to Jack, it seems, would have to wait. 

“Alex!” The receptionist calls his name loudly over the commotion, gesturing at him to come up to the desk. He notes that she doesn’t use the name “Mr. Rider,” something which he’s grateful for. It was always slightly comfortable to be referred to in the same way his uncle once was. “She’ll be seeing you now.” 

About bloody time. 

He gets up, tucking his cellphone away into his backpack. The receptionist crosses over to the side of the desk, watching quietly as Alex tries to squeeze his way through the group, muttering apologies along the way. It’s difficult since everyone is standing as close as possible to each other, eager to get out and get on with their day. The side effect, of course, is there that there’s a lot of jostling, barely concealed hostility, and body odor. 

The line surges forward and someone’s shoulder knocks against him. He stumbles into the person standing in front of him. 

As luck would have it, it’s the red-headed businesswoman from before. She glares at him as he mumbles, “sorry,” finally getting free from the line. 

The receptionist gestures him towards the side elevator, the one for staff. Pulling out her keycard and swiping it in the slot, the doors slide open. “Sorry about the wait. It seems that Mrs. Jones was in a meeting when you’d arrived. She’s free to see you now.” 

They step inside, and she presses the button for the sixteenth floor. He studies the interior, mainly as a way to occupy himself. They’ve changed the carpeting, it seems. Or cleaned it. Could be one of the two. The left-back corner, which had some kind of coffee stain on it the last time he’d visited, is finally back to the same boring brown color as the rest of it. A bit anticlimactic, he has to admit. He thought they’d finally started introducing splashes of color to the place. 

The elevator has barely crossed past the first floor when the sound of rumbling fills their ears like someone was shaking a giant bag of rocks above them. Alex glances at the receptionist, wondering if she has some kind of explanation for this new development (“We’re redesigning the elevators, so sorry about the noise,”) but even she looks confused about the source of it. The elevator rumbles again, shaking, and Alex presses a hand against the wall, trying to maintain his balance. Finally, it jerks to a stop. There’s a low pitched whine, and the lights flicker and then go out, leaving them in the darkness. 

For a few moments, there’s quiet silence, not even the hum of electricity to keep them company. He can’t deny that it does make him twitch in something akin to nervousness. He forces himself to steel his nerves, reminding himself that he’s not alone here. The receptionist was also here, and there’s nothing else happening right now that makes him think that they’re explicitly in danger. Technological glitches had been happening all day in the building. This might just be another proof of MI6’s incompetence. 

A feeling of dread arises in him. Cut phone lines. No reception. No wi-fi. The perfect blackout situation. The perfect kind of situation for an attack. It can’t be a coincidence. Not with him around, and especially not with the Bank, of all places. 

“Hey,” he says, allowing his eyes to search the darkness for the silhouette of the receptionist. He forces himself to keep his voice calm. Panicking a civilian was never a good idea. “Um, I never got your name.” 

Not the time to really be asking either, but it doesn’t matter. If the receptionist thinks so as well, she doesn’t show it. For a civilian, she’s handling the situation remarkably well. It might not even be the first time she’s been in a situation like this. “I’m Rachel.” 

“Okay, Rachel. Do you have reception on your cell phone?” 

The sound of rustling as she pulls it out. A moment later, the darkness of the elevator is pierced by the bright light of her phone. She holds it up, squinting, then shakes her head. “No.” 

“What about wifi?” 

“No bars. Let me check mobile data.” A few taps on the screen and she shakes her head once again. “Nothing.” 

Alex nods. It’s what he’s expected anyway. “We can’t call anyone and I doubt that M-the bank is going to be too concerned with getting the doors open. Is there an emergency button somewhere?” 

Rachel jabs a button on the keypad a few times. It appears futile. “They’ve cut the electricity.” 

He exhales. None of the buttons would be working then. That meant they could be stuck here for a while, without any kind of way to signal for help if they were in trouble. This was assuming, of course, that trouble didn’t find them first. “Can you turn the flashlight on your phone? I’m going to try and work the doors open.” 

She does, and the brightness lights up the interior of the elevator, illuminating everything in a harsh sickly glow. He finds the doors, trying to shove them apart. But they’re jammed so tightly together that he can’t even get his fingers in between the crevices. A security precaution, likely, that has managed to backfire on them spectacularly. 

That left them two options. The first was to stay where they were and wait for MI6 to eventually get them out. He dismisses this option almost immediately. MI6 was, at best, extremely late to the scene, and at worst, never there at all. It’s not a guarantee that they’ll come to rescue them. And if there truly was an attack of some kind, staying put in a place as small as the elevator box would serve to make them easy targets. A grenade would finish them off, as would a shot from someone who didn’t even have much experience with a gun. 

The second option, of course, is for Alex to somehow figure something to help get them out. As usual, it's this that he takes. 

“What are you doing?” Rachel asks, sounding bemused as he goes to stand in the center of the elevator. “Are you trying to get the hatch open? It won’t work. You need a key from the outside.” 

“That’s for newer elevators,” he responds as he judges the distance. Not much of a leap for him, but he’ll have to knock into it with enough force that he manages to get the paneling off. That was assuming that he would hit the right panel in the first place. “This is an older one. It can open from the inside.” 

“I’m telling you, it won’t work. Everything’s been renovated. You’ll just hurt yourself.” 

He tunes her out as he crouches, then leaps. If he listened to people every time they said his ideas weren’t going to work, he’d not only have significantly fewer injuries, but he likely wouldn’t be alive to see it either. 

His hand smashes into the metal paneling, and with a loud clatter, it falls, narrowly missing his head. Rachel, to her credit, doesn’t scream, though she looks vaguely like Jack with the disapproving look she has on her face. 

His plan has worked though. Underneath the paneling is an old rusted door with a latch. Alex would have to turn the knob to the side to get it to open. It looks heavy, and like it hasn’t been opened in quite some time. 

He glances at Rachel. “If I hold you up, could you get the latch open?” 

She rolls her eyes, stepping forward. Like most people, it seems she’s resigned herself to going along with his plan. “I’ll hold you up. I did cheer in secondary school, so just step up and open the latch.” 

She laces her fingers together, creating a step for him. He climbs up, holding her shoulders with one hand to keep himself balanced. She puts an arm around his waist, steadying him as he works on getting the latch open. 

“Are you done?” She asks, voice sounding slightly strained. She won’t be able to hold up his weight for much longer. Alex is growing into his weight a little more, though he does still remain slightly underweight for his age and stature. 

“Hold on.” A few more quick turns, and then the latch finally releases something. He pushes up against the rusted metal door until it opens up with a loud screech, just enough to give him an opening big enough for him to fit his body through. He grabs the edges of the opening with both his hands, pulling himself up. Underneath him, Rachel focuses on steadying his legs until he manages to get his entire body up on top of the elevator. 

Outside the elevator box, it’s even darker. He grabs his phone from his pocket, turning it to the flashlight function. The bright light makes things easier to see. His surroundings show that he’s standing on a bunch of black wiring, with a pulley and wire system holding the entire thing up. There’s a box with connecting wires and another kind of pulley, presumably to get the doors open, but that’s near pointless since they’re stuck between floors. 

“Stay here,” he calls down to Rachel, who’s peering up at him. “I’ll go and get some help. I’m going to close this door. It’ll be safer for you that way.” 

Rachel nods, crossing her arms as he presses the door shut once again. It seems that she’s given up on arguing with him, which is more than he can say for some of the others he’s been with on missions. 

Now completely alone, he once again considers his options. Getting the door open was pointless, as was trying to climb up using the pulleys. On a newer elevator, sure, he’d trust their ability to hold up both the elevator box as well as himself, but MI6, stingy bastards they were, had likely missed this renovation as well. Rather than miscalculate and end up with disastrous consequences, he considers some other options. 

Shining the light up, he squints. They were technically between the first and second floor, weren’t they? Depending on how far they were in between, he might just be able to leap up onto the next floor. It doesn’t exactly help that the lights seem to have gone out in the entire building. There’s a dark opening up above, but he can’t tell for certain if it’s the opening to the next floor or simply an opening into darkness. One would help them get out. The other would result in his premature death. 

He’ll just have to risk it and find out. 

It’s too high up for him to try and leap for it. Not enough momentum. Besides, if he fell, it would be painful; there’s a slight gap between the elevator and the wall surrounding it. Too late he wonders if he maybe should have taken Rachel with him. With her cheerleading skills, she might be able to get herself, if not him, up. 

He grimaces. Alex was no cheerleader, but for the time being, he’d have to be. So leaping straight up was out. So what? He had other options, didn’t he? 

He glances around, spotting the back wall. He walks over, examining it as an idea begins to form in his head. If he could somehow spring off that wall and then direct his next jump upwards, he might be able to latch his fingers onto the edge of the floor. Ian had taken him parkouring as a child semi-regularly and it had been one of the principles of gaining up momentum. He’d even been able to practice it a few times, though, admittedly, it hadn’t been in the middle of a poorly lit elevator shaft. 

Of course, the only damper in his plan was the distance between the wall and himself. The distance between the front wall and the elevator wasn’t so bad, but the back wall to the elevator...is quite a bit of distance. He measures it out with his feet, first from one end of the elevator to the other, and then uses that as an estimate for the back wall to the elevator. Even if he takes a running leap right at the edge of the elevator, he would still be going quite some ways. Six or more feet of distance just for the running start, and then at least another five feet of distance to the wall. Underneath other circumstances, he would have been able to make it (when he’d still attended school, he’d been quite good at the track and field portion of things, with his longest jump clocking in somewhere around 19 feet), but this was launching off a wall and then having to change directions mid-air to be able to grab onto the edge of the floor. If he at any point of time, fell or even missed one inch to the left or right, he’d at best, be injured and at worst, killed. 

It also reminds him horribly of the test Blunt had set him for. The one with his uncle’s office. For a moment, he thinks it might be just that. But Mrs. Jones doesn’t need to test him now, does she, and for what reason? He hadn’t even explicitly given his answer, and he’d left her office last night with a more or less ambiguous response. This would just be a waste of time and resources, as well as the potential for a lawsuit. British teenager dies in an elevator shaft? Even for MI6, it would take a serious amount of covering up and lying to keep this one out of the papers. 

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Even if it is a test, the temptation for Alex to do something, to fix the problem rather than stay put, is too strong. He’d at least rather die knowing he tried rather than just stay there and let them die anyway. 

He takes a deep breath, moving back to the other end of the elevator box. Adjusts his backpack on his shoulders, tightening the straps to fit more snugly across his shoulders. Reminds himself that he’d placed second in the school field and track competition. This would be a piece of cake, compared to all the other things he’s done. 

Alex takes another deep breath. 

Then, he takes a running leap forward and jumps. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changes: 
> 
> Chapter 1: (Most of these changes are irrelevant in the grand scheme of the story, but just thought I should note them anyway). 
> 
> Jamuti’s perspective remains unchanged.   
> Changed up Alex’s perspective a bit (he’s been going to therapy regularly and has medication for his PTSD.)   
> Detail about his appetite being inconsistent.   
> Mrs. Jones wants Jamuti to influence Alex Malagasto graduate to Malagasto graduate. She also wants them to eventually work together.   
> Mrs. Jones mentions that the CIA knew Jamuti had been in South America, but they couldn’t claim custody. However, it’s implied they’re putting a fuss up about it anyway.   
> As they’re speaking, Jamuti is on the plane out of the Islands, not already in custody.


End file.
